‘Raking up closed Katchatheevu issue may gravely harm interest of Tamils in Sri Lanka,’ says P Chidambaram | India News

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday said the ruling BJP has been raising the “closed issue” of Katchatheevu to gain political ground ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, which would “gravely harm the interests of the millions of Tamil-speaking people in Sri Lanka“.
Chidambaram said the issue may create a situation of confrontation between the Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
“Modi and his ministers know that they will gravely harm the interests of the millions of Tamil-speaking people living in Sri Lanka if they create a situation of confrontation between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils or between the Sinhalese and Tamils, yet they raise a closed issue for obvious political and electoral reasons, which is sad and condemnable”, claimed the Congress Rajya Sabha MP.
Questioning the BJP’s timing in raking up the issue, Chidambaram said the saffron party has raised it for “obvious political and electoral reasons” and to divert people’s attention from “Chinese troops occupying Indian territory“.
“Katchatheevu is a closed issue. The agreement was reached 50 years ago. Modi has been in office since 2014; why did he not raise the issue in the last 10 years?” questioned the former Union minister.
“It is being raised now in the light of the fact that Chinese troops are occupying Indian territory, several of our patrol points have been barred, and the Chinese are fortifying the border to their advantage,” he said.
A few days ago, Congress leader Digvijay Singh, had dismissed the Katchatheevu Island issue as “utter nonsense”.
“Does anyone live there? This is utter nonsense. PM Modi talks baseless,” Digvijay Singh had said.
Retorting to Digvijay Singh’s remark, PM Modi lashed out at him, asking “If someone does not live then should it be given away?”
Addressing a rally in Rajasthan’s Karauli, the Prime Minister slammed the Congress for “shamelessly justifying anti-national misdeeds”.
“The Congress is shamelessly justifying anti-national misdeeds. Yesterday, a Congress leader asked, ‘Does anyone live there?’. If someone does not live then should it be given away? Then what will you call the desert? For them, a vacant part of the country is just a piece of land,” said PM Modi in a veiled attack on Digvijaya Singh.
PM Modi lambasted the Congress, saying the party can “give vacant land of a border state like Rajasthan to any country”.
Katchatheevu controversy
The decision of the Indira Gandhi government to hand over Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974 took centre stage in the Lok Sabha campaign in Tamil Nadu and beyond after official documents and records of Parliament showed how a vacillating India lost the battle for control of the island in Palk Strait to a smaller country determined to wrest it.

The documents, obtained by TN BJP chief K Annamalai through an RTI application, bring out Sri Lanka making up for its lack of size with tenacious pursuit of the 1.9 square km of land about 20km from Indian shore based on claims which New Delhi contested for decades only to acquiesce to finally.
Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, pressed its claim right after Independence, when it said Indian Navy (then Royal Indian Navy) could not conduct exercises on the island without its permission. In Oct 1955, Ceylon Air Force held its exercise on the island.
Its stance was reflected in a minute by first PM Jawaharlal Nehru on May 10, 1961, who dismissed the issue as inconsequential.
(With PTI inputs)