Katchatheevu made poll issue without considering India-Sri Lanka ties: Yashwant Sinha
Katchatheevu island an election issue ahead of Lok Sabha polls without thinking of its implications on the India-Sri Lanka relations. The decades-old territorial and fishing rights dispute around the Katchatheevu island is in the limelight again with the BJP and the opposition parties engaged in a war of words.
Sinha, who had served as India's finance minister, and external affairs minister, said the island falls on the Sri Lankan side of the maritime boundary.
«I am extremely dismayed that no other than the prime minister of the country has raised this issue. I am aware of the fact that Katchatheevu was an island which when the maritime, international maritime line was drawn fell on the side of Sri Lanka and therefore went to Sri Lanka.
«And that is why repeatedly the Ministry of External Affairs has held the position that there was no question of conceding any territory to Sri Lanka because the island fell on the Sri Lankan side,» Sinha said.
«Therefore to raise this issue now, I can only say that it will spoil the relationship with Sri Lanka. And what will you do? Are you going to use force to take the island back? So this is nothing but an election issue,» he said.
The island is located between Rameswaram in India and Sri Lanka. In 1974, the then central government accepted Katchatheevu as Sri Lankan territory under the «Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime Agreement.»
«Now, in an election, you raise many issues. But you have to be conscious of the implications of the issues that you raise. Here, the prime minister
