28.3.13

Amma ups the ante


Ramping up the rhetoric, Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa moved a resolution, calling for a referendum among Sri Lankan Tamils on the formation of a ‘separate Eelam’ (Tamil land) within Sri Lanka. Demanding that India take it up in the UN Security Council, the resolution said the referendum “for the sake of their future welfare” should be held among Tamils in Sri Lanka as well as the Tamil diaspora.
Toughening her government’s stand further, the resolution, which was adopted by the assembly, urged the Centre not only to stop calling Sri Lanka a friendly nation but also to impose economic sanctions on the island nation until it ends repression of Tamils.
The resolution also demanded an impartial, international and independent probe against the Lankan government and army for alleged war crimes and genocide.


However, it was adopted in the assembly without members of the main opposition DMDK, which has boycotted House proceedings, and DMK members, who were evicted.
Political parties in Tamil Nadu have been vying with each other to raise the Lanka pitch. The ruling AIADMK’s latest demand is seen as a move to take centrestage on the Eelam issue. Jayalalithaa had always kept Eelam out of her political campaigns, that is until the 2009 Lok Sabha elections when, with the end of the Sri Lanka war in April, pro-Tamil groups made it a poll issue.

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