Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi is stepping up pressure on the Centre to act tough on the Sri Lankan Government.
It is reliably learnt that the Lankan government has stepped up military offensive against LTTE in northern Lanka and claims that it is slowly wiping out LTTE strongholds.
Politicians in the southern Indian states are in an overdrive to prove who the real champion of their brethren in peril is.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, whose party also props up the UPA government at the Centre has voiced his apprehensions of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Repotedly, Karunanidhi has threatened to pull out of UPA government unless the Indian government takes a really tough stance on the action by Sri Lankan defence forces and government on the people of Tamil origin in the island nation.
The Tamil Nadu CM sounded out his warning at a public rally organized by the party he heads, DMK.
“If Sri Lanka refuses to listen to India's warnings and continues to kill Tamils, then we will have to consider whether we need the UPA government,” said Karunanidhi.
It's a political threat that few would take seriously, especially as his own state government's survival depends on the Congress.
But he had to sound off the Centre in public so as to be heard and noticed loud and clear above the other parties who are trying to ride on the LTTE-sympathy wave.
Parties like the CPI, PMK and MDMK have stepped up their protest against the Sri Lankan army’s advances and even Jayalalithaa who was once fiercely against the LTTE has joined the chorus.
Karunanidhi did not fail to deliver that one line meant to draw the masses’ attention.
“If the center does not support us in this cause for the Sri Lankan Tamils, we will also die and I have nothing else to say,” said Karunanidhi.
Latest reports had said that the Sri Lankan army is just two kilometers away from Kilinochi, which was once described as the capital of LTTE controlled areas in Sri Lanka.
The many voices in India may never be heard above the internal disorder by the Sri Lankan forces.
ibn
Karunanidhi threatens to quit UPA
The Lankan army's alleged genocide of Lankan Tamils in their fight to storm LTTE's stronghold is having its repercussion in India.
Tamilnadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi has threatened to withdraw support to the UPA if the Centre does not intervene to stop this.
This even after the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured him of intervention and the national security advisor expressed India's concerns to the Sri Lankan envoy. (Watch)
"If this atrocity against Lankan Tamils does not stop, then we will have to find answer to the question, 'Whether we require this government?' I tell you with all humility that this meeting is to tell you this," said M Karunanidhi, Chief Minister, Tamil Nadu.
The people of Tamil Nadu share umbilical relations with Lankan Tamils and an estimated 70,000 people have been killed in the island nation ever since the ethnic war for an independent Tamil Eelam state began in the eighties.
While reports from Colombo indicate the Lankan forces are closing in on the LTTE, just 2 kilometres away from their political capital Kilinochi, political observers say this has forced Karunanidhi to up the ante to stop the Lankan offensive.
With talks of early Lok Sabha polls in the air it's a political tightrope walk for both the DMK and the Centre. Any failure to stop the genocide against Lankan Tamils will only make the anti-incumbency wave caused by inflation much stronger in Tamil Nadu.
NDTV
PMK willing to work with DMK on Lankan Tamils issue
The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), which was eased out of the DMK-led DPA a few months back, today expressed willingness to work with its former alliance partner on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue, saying Chief Minister M Karunanidhi should come forward to lead the struggle for safeguarding the ethnic Tamils there.
"The Tamil people should unitedly fight to safeguard the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and Karunanidhi should come forward to lead us," party founder S Ramadoss said here in a statement.
"We should unitedly fight against the ethnic cleansing of Tamils in Sri Lanka," he said adding the state would stand behind Karunanidhi in this effort.
Lauding Karunanidhi for raising the issue, Ramadoss said he must ask Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to express his displeasure on the "killings of innocent Tamils" to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa had made a similar demand a few days ago.
Ramadoss, father of Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, also called for more pro-active steps from the DMK leader, asking him to talk to the Tamil National Alliance party in the island nation that has a representation of 22 Tamil MPs.
"The chief minister should make efforts to facilitate meeting of TNA leaders with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi," he said.
He also wanted a fact-finding team, comprising elected members, including MPs from Tamil Nadu, to visit Sri Lanka to get a "first hand information," on the hardships faced by Tamils there
PTI
It is reliably learnt that the Lankan government has stepped up military offensive against LTTE in northern Lanka and claims that it is slowly wiping out LTTE strongholds.
Politicians in the southern Indian states are in an overdrive to prove who the real champion of their brethren in peril is.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, whose party also props up the UPA government at the Centre has voiced his apprehensions of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Repotedly, Karunanidhi has threatened to pull out of UPA government unless the Indian government takes a really tough stance on the action by Sri Lankan defence forces and government on the people of Tamil origin in the island nation.
The Tamil Nadu CM sounded out his warning at a public rally organized by the party he heads, DMK.
“If Sri Lanka refuses to listen to India's warnings and continues to kill Tamils, then we will have to consider whether we need the UPA government,” said Karunanidhi.
It's a political threat that few would take seriously, especially as his own state government's survival depends on the Congress.
But he had to sound off the Centre in public so as to be heard and noticed loud and clear above the other parties who are trying to ride on the LTTE-sympathy wave.
Parties like the CPI, PMK and MDMK have stepped up their protest against the Sri Lankan army’s advances and even Jayalalithaa who was once fiercely against the LTTE has joined the chorus.
Karunanidhi did not fail to deliver that one line meant to draw the masses’ attention.
“If the center does not support us in this cause for the Sri Lankan Tamils, we will also die and I have nothing else to say,” said Karunanidhi.
Latest reports had said that the Sri Lankan army is just two kilometers away from Kilinochi, which was once described as the capital of LTTE controlled areas in Sri Lanka.
The many voices in India may never be heard above the internal disorder by the Sri Lankan forces.
ibn
Karunanidhi threatens to quit UPA
The Lankan army's alleged genocide of Lankan Tamils in their fight to storm LTTE's stronghold is having its repercussion in India.
Tamilnadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi has threatened to withdraw support to the UPA if the Centre does not intervene to stop this.
This even after the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured him of intervention and the national security advisor expressed India's concerns to the Sri Lankan envoy. (Watch)
"If this atrocity against Lankan Tamils does not stop, then we will have to find answer to the question, 'Whether we require this government?' I tell you with all humility that this meeting is to tell you this," said M Karunanidhi, Chief Minister, Tamil Nadu.
The people of Tamil Nadu share umbilical relations with Lankan Tamils and an estimated 70,000 people have been killed in the island nation ever since the ethnic war for an independent Tamil Eelam state began in the eighties.
While reports from Colombo indicate the Lankan forces are closing in on the LTTE, just 2 kilometres away from their political capital Kilinochi, political observers say this has forced Karunanidhi to up the ante to stop the Lankan offensive.
With talks of early Lok Sabha polls in the air it's a political tightrope walk for both the DMK and the Centre. Any failure to stop the genocide against Lankan Tamils will only make the anti-incumbency wave caused by inflation much stronger in Tamil Nadu.
NDTV
PMK willing to work with DMK on Lankan Tamils issue
The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), which was eased out of the DMK-led DPA a few months back, today expressed willingness to work with its former alliance partner on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue, saying Chief Minister M Karunanidhi should come forward to lead the struggle for safeguarding the ethnic Tamils there.
"The Tamil people should unitedly fight to safeguard the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and Karunanidhi should come forward to lead us," party founder S Ramadoss said here in a statement.
"We should unitedly fight against the ethnic cleansing of Tamils in Sri Lanka," he said adding the state would stand behind Karunanidhi in this effort.
Lauding Karunanidhi for raising the issue, Ramadoss said he must ask Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to express his displeasure on the "killings of innocent Tamils" to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa had made a similar demand a few days ago.
Ramadoss, father of Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, also called for more pro-active steps from the DMK leader, asking him to talk to the Tamil National Alliance party in the island nation that has a representation of 22 Tamil MPs.
"The chief minister should make efforts to facilitate meeting of TNA leaders with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi," he said.
He also wanted a fact-finding team, comprising elected members, including MPs from Tamil Nadu, to visit Sri Lanka to get a "first hand information," on the hardships faced by Tamils there
PTI
