4 min readChennai, New DelhiApr 2, 2024 06:32 AM IST
First published on: Apr 2, 2024 at 04:13 AM IST
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Minister S Jaishankar on Monday added his weight to BJP claims that the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi gave away the Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka in 1974 and kept this “hidden”.
Speaking at a press conference at the BJP headquarters in Delhi, Jaishankar claimed that the Prime Ministers under Congress rule displayed indifference towards Katchatheevu and gave away Indian fishermen’s rights despite legal views to the contrary.
Alleging that Prime Ministers such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi dubbed Katchatheevu, given to Sri Lanka in 1974 as part of a maritime boundary agreement, as a “little island” and “little rock”, Jaishankar said that DMK leader and the then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had been informed about the agreement. He alleged that the DMK, which leads the opposition INDIA bloc in Tamil Nadu, “connived” with the Congress in 1974 and afterward in creating this situation.
Jaishankar’s assertions came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress of “callously giving away” the island to Sri Lanka. The Prime Minister targeted the opposition party on Monday as well. In a social media post, he said the Congress and DMK “only care that their own sons and daughters rise”.
On the arrest of Indian fishermen, Jaishankar said it was the Narendra Modi government which has been working to ensure that they are released, adding, “We have to find a solution. We have to sit down and work it out with the Sri Lankan government.” According to the minister, 6,184 Indian fishermen have been detained by Sri Lanka in the past 20 years.
Later in the day, Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai, while asserting that the Centre is considering all possible solutions to reclaim the island, also targeted the BJP.
Quoting documents he availed through an RTI petition, Annamalai told reporters in Chennai that the DMK was equally responsible for the situation. Quoting minutes of a meeting held a month before the handing over of the island, he said the then External Affairs Minister Kewal Singh secured Karunanidhi’s approval on the matter.
Annamalai said Singh had met Karunanidhi at Fort St. George, the state secretariat, and discussed the issue. Undermining DMK’s current position on the issue, he said, Karunanidhi did not oppose the move but only asked if the Centre could “postpone the decision by two years”. Annamalai said “it shows he was also party to this decision”.
“When the Congress government at the Centre handed over the island to Lanka, DMK also had a role in this process. It seems the current Tamil Nadu CM has written 21 times to EAM Jaishankar demanding retrieval of the island. But the fact is that had the same DMK and the then CM Karunanidhi opposed the move 45 years ago, the Centre wouldn’t have handed it over to Sri Lanka,” Annamalai said.
“Whenever these parties united in alliance at the Centre, Indian lands were given away to other countries,” he alleged.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar 
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