Fifty years after India and Sri Lanka signed a bilateral agreement demarcating maritime boundaries from the Palk Strait to Adam’s Bridge, the ceding of Katchatheevu islet has become a hot political issue in Tamil Nadu. What electoral impact would it have in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls?
Katchatheevu, an uninhabited island, has become a point of debate in the country, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress of callously ceding it to Sri Lanka in 1974. Since then, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and other BJP have been targeting the Congress and the DMK, charging that these two parties, which were in power in 1974, had given up the rights of the fishermen to Sri Lanka.
What prompted this attack is certain documents that have been obtained under the RTI Act by the BJP Tamil Nadu President K. Annamalai. These documents reveal that in 1974, before India and Sri Lanka signed the bilateral agreement, the then Foreign Secretary Kewal Singh took the Chief Minister Karunanidhi into confidence on this issue.
Also read: Katchatheevu | An island for all, or none
This is a new revelation, given that during his lifetime, Karunanidhi had maintained that he had never agreed to the cessation of Katchatheevu and he was politically opposed to it.
Script and Presentation: D Suresh Kumar
Videography: S. Shiva Raj
Production: Shibu Narayan
