Chennai: Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Monday tore into opposition DMK for “feigning” concern over the emotive Katchatheevu retrieval issue and said had its intention been genuine, the DMK would have supported her by impleading in the 2008 case she had filed before the Supreme Court. Besides, she asserted she will definitely win the court case and that the island would be retrieved.
“There is no point in agitating or writing letters to the Prime Minister, which I had also done. I had moved the Supreme Court hoping to get back the island. The DMK has to wait till then. I hope the Almighty would ensure the well being of DMK members so that they could see the retrieving of Katchatheevu,” she said pointing to the Opposition benches during a fiery debate on the issue in the Assembly.
Initiating a debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor for his address to the Assembly, former DMK minister K. Ponmudy sought to know the steps being taken by the government to retrieve Katchatheevu.
Intervening, Jayalalithaa said it was the DMK government under Karunanidhi that was at the helm of affairs in the State when Katchatheevu was ceded to Sri Lanka through the 1974 and 1976 agreements.
Accusing the DMK of being a mute spectator when the island was ceded, she sought to know why the DMK, which enjoyed power with both the BJP-led NDA government and Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, never used its position to get back Katchatheevu.
She had filed the case challenging the Constitutional validity of the agreements when she was the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, based on the 1960 Supreme Court judgement declaring as null and void the ceding of Berubari to East Pakistan on the ground that Constitutional amendments were not brought in this regard and that it was not ratified by both Houses of Parliament.
“I will definitely win this case and Katchatheevu will be retrieved from Sri Lanka,” Jayalalithaa said, amidst loud thumping of desks by the Treasury. When M.K. Stalin, Leader of Opposition, said the Centre did not consult TN government in 1974 while transferring Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka, she asked him to explain his party’s stand on ceding of the island and blamed DMK for the present mess.
