Katchatheevu: Jayalalithaa likens DMK to Rip Van Winkle
The DMK, which shared power with any party that formed the government at the Centre, could have used its influence and retrieved the islet.
Chennai: Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Monday likened the opposition DMK to Rip Van Winkle in waking up all of a sudden and asking her what steps she had taken to retrieve Katchatheevu (an islet ceded to Sri Lanka by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) in the interest of Tamil Nadu fishermen.
The DMK, which shared power with any party that formed the government at the Centre, could have used its influence and retrieved the islet. “Your leader and former chief minister Mr Karunanidhi then boasted that the Prime Minister acted as per his guidance. Why didn’t he then exert pressure on the Centre to retrieve Katchatheevu? After having slept for so many years, now you wake up suddenly like Rip Van Winkle, and ask me in the Assembly why I have not taken steps to retrieve the islet. You don’t have the locus standi to question me,” Ms Jayalalithaa said amid the thumping of treasury benches.