Sensing an opportunity to retrieve lost ground in Tamil Nadu, the DMK has decided to raise the issue of India’s stand on US-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva in Parliament during the forthcoming Budget Session.
With the Trinamul Congress deciding to take up the cause of West Bengal and the DMK upping the ante on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue, the Congress will have to expend considerable energy in not only defending itself from the Opposition onslaught, but also in placating its allies.
External affairs minister S.M. Krishna has broadly hinted that India might end up backing the island nation despite parties in Tamil Nadu cutting across the political spectrum demanding that India vote against Sri Lanka. This is one of the rare issues in which the DMK and the AIADMK see eye to eye. Apart from the MDMK, PMK and the VCK, even the BJP, which has only an organisational existence, has batted for India indicting the island nation for its alleged excesses during the final stages of the civil war that ultimately saw the decimation of the LTTE.
DMK sources say that the party would not mind even walking out of the UPA over the issue, if push comes to a shove. “We are watching the moves of the UPA government very closely on how it goes about responding to the sentiments of people in Tamil Nadu. Any wrong move would have serious consequences for the tieup,” said a DMK leader. He went on to add that the Congress is on the defensive as it has suffered a huge setback in the recently concluded Assembly polls and therefore it cannot afford to be indifferent to the views of its allies.