New Delhi (Tamil Nadu): As the decades-old territorial and fishing rights dispute around Katchatheevu Island has been brought back into the limelight with the BJP accusing Congress of 'giving away' it to Sri Lanka, Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP, P Chidambaram on Monday slammed External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar over the latter's remarks on the ongoing row.
In multiple tweets, Chidambaram questioned Jaishankar's "somersault" and asserted that the Foreign Minister should refer to a 2015 RTI.
"Tit for tat is old. Tweet for Tweet is the new weapon. Will foreign minister Mr Jaishankar please refer to the RTI reply dated 27-1-2015. I believe that Mr Jaishankar was the FM on 27-1-2015. The Reply justified the circumstances under which India acknowledged that a small island belonged to Sri Lanka. Why is the Foreign Minister and his ministry doing a somersault now? How quickly can people change colours," the Congress leader tweeted.
Doubling down on his attack on Jaishankar, Chidambaram called the former a "suave liberal foreign service officer" who went on to become a "smart foreign secretary" to a "mouthpiece of the RSS-BJP". "Life and times of Mr Jaishankar will be recorded in the annals of acrobatic sports," Chidambaram tweeted.
In another tweet, Chidambaram reminded Jaishankar that both Indian and Lankan fisherman were detained in the last 50 years. "It is true that Fishermen were detained in the last 50 years. Likewise, India has detained many SL fishermen. Every government has negotiated with Sri Lanka and freed our fishermen. This has happened when Mr Jaishankar was a foreign service officer and when he was Foreign Secretary and when he is Foreign Minister. What has changed for Mr Jaishankar to launch a tirade against the Congress and DMK? Were not Fishermen detained by Sri Lanka when Mr Vajpayee was PM and BJP was in power and in alliance with different political parties of TN? Were not fishermen detained by Sri Lanka when Mr Modi was in power since 2014?" he tweeted.
Addressing a press briefing in Delhi earlier in the day, Jaishankar said that in the last 20 years, as many as 6,184 Indian fishermen have been detained by Sri Lanka and 1,175 Indian fishing vessels have been seized, detained or apprehended. "This is the background of the issue that we are discussing".
Jaishankar said Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's first Prime Minister, wanted to give away the island to Sri Lanka. He said prime ministers such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi dubbed Katchatheevu, given to Sri Lanka in 1974 as part of a maritime boundary agreement, as a "little island" and "little rock", asserting that the issue has not cropped up abruptly but was always a live matter.",
Jaishankar claimed that "we know who did this, what we don't know is who hid it. We believe that the public has the right to know how this situation came up". PM Modi also doubled down on his attacks against the DMK with a fresh tweet on Monday wherein he said that new details on the Katchatheevu island issue "have unmasked DMK’s double standards totally".
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