In his first reaction on the Katchatheevu row, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Ali Sabry said the issue was settled 50 years ago and there was no need to revisit it, reported The Times of India.
“There is no controversy. They are having an internal political debate about who is responsible. Other than that, no one is talking about claiming Katchatheevu,” Sabry was quoted as saying by the media outlet.
BJP has alleged that the Congress governments led by Nehru and later Indira Gandhi gave up the island under pressure from Sri Lanka.
In response, Congress said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was spinning a “false narrative” to divert attention from his silence in the face of Chinese provocation.
Addressing a poll rally on Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin said that the BJP has done a “somersault” on the Katchatheevu issue since the Lok Sabha polls are round the corner.
Stalin claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not have the guts to neither condemn Sri Lanka over fishermen arrests nor oppose China on its claims over Arunachal Pradesh. When that is the case, how can he talk about Katchatheevu, he said.
The president of the ruling DMK hit out at Modi for staging a “drama” and coming up with “stories” on the Katchatheevu issue and dubbed the disclosures by the Centre on the matter under the RTI Act as “wrong information.” He asked how the government had given “wrong information” concerning the nation’s security under the RTI Act to an individual belonging to the BJP (Tamil Nadu state chief K Annamalai).
The BJP government had earlier failed to provide answers on Katchatheevu by stating that the subject was sub-judice as the matter was pending before the Supreme Court. The BJP regime in 2015 said that Katchatheevu had never been a part of India.
(With PTI inputs)
Comments
0 comment