Katchatheevu: PM targets DMK after Congress, Jaishankar gives ‘history’ of issue

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (April 1) targeted the DMK over the Katchatheevu island issue, alleging the ruling party of Tamil Nadu did nothing to safeguard the state's interests.

New details emerging on the issue of India handing over the Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka "have unmasked the DMK's double standards totally," he wrote on X, citing a news report which claimed that then chief minister M Karunanidhi had given his concurrence to the agreement despite his party the DMK's public posturing against the deal.

The media report is based on an RTI reply received by Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai to his queries on the 1974 agreement between India and Lanka when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister.

PM's post

Modi said, "Rhetoric aside, DMK has done NOTHING to safeguard Tamil Nadu's interests. New details emerging on Katchatheevu have UNMASKED the DMK's double standards totally. The Congress and DMK are family units. They only care that their own sons and daughters rise. They don't care for anyone else. Their callousness on Katchatheevu has harmed the interests of our poor fishermen and fisherwomen in particular," he added.

The prime minister on Sunday (March 31) targeted the Congress over the issue.

He said, "Weakening India's unity, integrity and interests has been the Congress' way of working for 75 years and counting."

EAM Jaishankar on the Katchatheevu issue

Stepping up the attack on the Opposition over the Katchatheevu issue, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said at a press conference on Monday that former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi dubbed Katchatheevu as a “little island” and “little rock”.

“In an observation given by the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1961, he wrote, ‘I attach no importance at all to this little island and I would have no hesitation in giving up our claim to it. I do not like matters like this pending indefinitely and being raised again and again in parliament.’ So, to Pandit Nehru, this was a little island, it had no importance, he saw it as a nuisance... For him, the sooner you give it away, the better...,” said the External Affairs Minister.

“This view continued on to Indira Gandhi as well,” Jaishankar added.

Background

"In the last 20 years, 6,184 Indian fishermen have been detained by Sri Lanka and 1,175 Indian fishing vessels have been seized, detained, or apprehended by Sri Lanka. This is the background of the issue that we are discussing.

"In the last five years, the Katchatheevu issue and the fishermen's issue have been repeatedly raised by various parties in the Parliament. It has come up in parliament questions, debates, and in the consultative committee. The then CM of Tamil Nadu had written to me numerous times. And my record shows that to the current CM, I have replied 21 times on this issue.”

A "live issue"

Jaishankar continued, “This is not an issue which has suddenly surfaced. This is a live issue. It is an issue which has been very much debated in parliament and in the Tamil Nadu circles. It has been the subject of correspondence between the Union government and the state government. Now, every political party in Tamil Nadu has taken a position on this. Two parties, the Congress and the DMK, have approached this matter as though they have no responsibility for it. As though the situation is for today's central government to resolve, there is no history to this, this has just happened, they are the people who are taking up the cause; that is the way they would like to project it."

Katchatheevu was given to Sri Lanka in 1974 as part of a maritime boundary agreement. The BJP is hopeful that the issue will come in handy in its efforts to gain political traction in the Dravidian territory during the Lok Sabha polls, more so as it involves neighbouring Sri Lanka whose treatment of its own Tamilian citizens and Tamil Nadu fishermen has long been a charged political issue in the state.

(With agency inputs)