Date:01/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/01/stories/2008080153490400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Jayalalithaa backs Karunanidhi’s demand

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Jayalalithaa on Thursday came to the support of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on the demand to retrieve Kachatheevu.

Describing Mr. Karunanidhi’s demand as belated, Ms Jayalalithaa, however, said in a statement: “Political differences apart, I fully back this demand. And I shall do my utmost to ensure that Kachatheevu reverts to its original status as a part of Indian territory.”

“Monumental blunder”

Calling the ceding of the islet a “monumental blunder,” the AIADMK leader said it had been her party’s position that attacks on fishermen of the State would cease only if the country got back the islet from Sri Lanka.

She recalled that in September 2004, when she was Chief Minister, she had called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and suggested that Kachatheevu could be got from Sri Lanka on ‘lease in perpetuity’ for fishing, drying of nets and pilgrimage by Indian fishermen. “But then, the Prime Minister did not wish to be seen by his ally in Tamil Nadu, the DMK [Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam], as accepting a proposal put forth by me. So, he chose to put the matter in cold storage.”

The consequence of the “colossal neglect and indifference” was that the present DMK regime had to contend with the problem of Tamil fishermen being killed, going missing, being attacked and being abducted by the Sri Lankan authorities, she said.

Demanding that Dr. Singh move the Supreme Court to test the validity of ceding Kachatheevu to Sri Lanka, Ms Jayalalithaa said that if the Prime Minister was not willing, she would move the court for a direction to the Centre to do so or pray that the apex court set aside the ceding of Kachatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974.

She cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case relating to the Indo-Pakistan agreement on Berubari Union and exchange of enclaves that any ceding of Indian territory to another country must be endorsed by Parliament through a constitutional amendment. In the case of Kachatheevu, no such step was taken by the Indira Gandhi government.

Ms Jayalalithaa also referred to the Sri Lankan Supreme Court declaring null and void, the merger of the North and the East proposed in the Indo-Lanka Agreement of 1987.