‘If PM is so passionate about Katchatheevu…’: Chidambaram says the island was not ceded to Sri Lanka

Congress leader P Chidambaram asked what Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that has been in power for nearly a decade did to resolve the Katchatheevu island issue if they indeed believed that the island was ceded to Sri Lanka. 

Chidambaram said that the BJP and PM Modi do not want to answer any questions and highlighted the RTI reply the Ministry of External Affairs had filed in 2015. He, referring to the RTI reply, said that the government of India had agreed earlier that the Katchatheevu island fell on the Sri Lankan side of the International Maritime Border Line and that it stated that the island was not acquired or ceded to anyone. 

“So how does the PM say that Katchatheevu is ceded to Sri Lanka? Why does he not read his own government’s records? Who was the Prime Minister in 2015? It was Mr Narendra Modi. Where was Mr Jaishankar? Jaishankar was the second-ranking officer in the MEA, and I think the next day he took over as Foreign Secretary. So having made a formal statement in 2015, why does the PM suddenly wake up 9 years later?,” asked Chidambaram. 

“If he was so passionate about Katchatheevu, what did he do for the last 9 years? How many times has he visited Sri Lanka? How many times has the Prime Minister or President of Sri Lanka visited India? How many times has Mr Jaishankar gone to Sri Lanka? The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, in a memorandum, raised the issue of Katchatheevu with the PM at a gathering in Nehru Stadium, Chennai. Why did the PM not reply?” he further asked. 

The Congress leader said that PM Modi was silent for 9 years since the RTI reply and suddenly in the middle of the elections, asked the BJP president to submit an RTI question. The Katchatheevu island row started after Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai filed an RTI query on the island, following which PM Modi and other BJP leaders blamed the Congress party for “callously” giving away the island. 

“This is a staged managed controversy, this is a manufactured controversy. The PM is doing great injustice to the Sri Lankan Tamils. After the Katchatheevu agreement was signed, nearly 6 lakh Tamils have been taken back to India, repatriated to India. They are living peacefully here. Further, 25 lakh Sri Lankan Tamils are in Sri Lanka, there are nearly 10 lakh Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka…their interests are paramount,” said Chidambaram that a situation of confrontation between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils or between the Synhalese people and the Tamils would hurt the Tamil people. He criticised PM Modi of not caring about the interest of Tamils and making “wild statements”.