PM assures DMK that he will take up the safety issue of Lankan Tamil’s with Rajapakse
PM assures DMK that he will take up the safety issue of Lankan Tamil’s with Rajapakse
Along with the ceremonial welcome he gets on his visit to New Delhi later this month, Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse will be given something which he has not asked for: a briefing on India’s rising concern over the killing of innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka.
With the DMK joining the chorus of other parties in Tamil Nadu demanding India’s interference in the Lankan crisis, the Centre has been forced to step down from its cultivated aloofness and acknowledge the damage in its south neighbourhood.
Shipping and surface transport minister TR Baalu, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as DMK president and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi’s messenger on Friday, said that the Prime Minister has assured him that the matter will be discussed with external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and taken up with Sri Lanka.
Except for the J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK, all the parties in Tamil Nadu have been raising a hue and cry over the “brutal killing of Tamils in Sri Lanka by the Sinhalese army.” Karunanidhi, who had been a vociferous supporter of the Tamil Eelam till the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, preferred not to join the chorus, evidently because of his relationship with the Congress.
But the Sri Lankan army’s bombing of a refugee camp in Vaharai in eastern Lanka on Wednesday, which left 65 civilians dead, had Karunanidhi deciding to not only to push for Indian intervention but also to make it be known that he is instrumental in breaking India’s inertia on the Lankan ethnic strife.
“I wish to bring to the notice of the Central government the pertinent question, which has now arisen, as to how long India is going to keep patience. The time is now ripe to rethink and find an answer (to the ethnic strife),” Karunanidhi has said.
While the pro-Eelam parties such as Vaiko’s MDMK and Thol Thirumavalavan’s Dalit Panthers have always been demanding India’s interference in the Lankan issue, DMK’s ally PMK has shrilled its pitch after Lankan forces bombed an orphanage in the LTTE-controlled Mullaitheevu, killing 61 children. Karunanidhi knows he cannot remain silent when Tamil sentiments peak.
While TR Baalu met the Prime Minister, Karunanidhi is understood to have asked his nephew and Union minister Dayanidhi Maran to brief UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on the inevitability of taking such a stance. DMK organising secretary TKS Elangovan is candid when he tells DNA, “Karunanidhi’s statement is for public consumption. We have been conveying our concerns within the UPA for sometime.”
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