NEW DELHI: The BJP on Monday continued to keep the pressure on the Congress and the DMK over the ceding of Katchatheevu in the Palk Bay in 1974. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar accused Congress prime ministers Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi of being indifferent towards Tamil Nadu fishermen’s rights and giving it away to Sri Lanka.
At a media interaction in the BJP headquarters here, Jaishankar said, “For Pandit Nehru, Katchatheevu was a “little island of no importance”. That’s why he considered the Katchatheevu issue a “nuisance” and never wanted it raised on the floor of Parliament again. Jaishankar quoted Nehru’s file noting in May 1961 as having said, “I attach no importance at all to this little island and I would have no hesitation in giving up our claim to it. I don’t like matters like this pending indefinitely and being raised again and again in Parliament.”
As for Indira Gandhi, the island was a little ‘rock’, Jaishankar said. Responding to opposition barbs on the timing of the controversy, Jaishankar said it is an ongoing issue. The ceding of Katchatheevu has resulted in more than 6,000 Indian fishermen being detained and 1,175 fishing vessels being seized by Lanka in the last 20 years.
Taking an aim at the DMK, the minister said the Congress had kept the regional party in the loop over giving the island away to Lanka. “The available records show the then foreign secretary keeping the then Tamil Nadu chief minister
M Karunanidhi fully informed of the talks between the two countries. Ironically, the same people who connived at all this are today standing up and trying to pretend to be champions of fishermen,” he charged.
Congress poser
The MEA under the watch of the then foreign secretary, S Jaishankar, said in 2015 in response to a RTI query on Katchatheevu, “This (Agreement) did not involve either acquiring or ceding of territory belonging to India since the area in question had never been demarcated. Under the Agreements, the Island of Katchatheevu lies on the Sri Lankan side of the India-Sri Lanka International Maritime Boundary Line.” Is he disowning the 2015 RTI response now, asks Congress leader Jairam Ramesh | P9