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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s half-century-old resolution to finish a territorial dispute with Sri Lanka over a tiny island has change into a hot-button election subject, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s occasion accusing the rival Congress of compromising fishermen’s rights.
A 1976 settlement barred Indian fishermen from waters across the 285-acre (115-hectare) island within the Palk Strait that divides the neighbours, two years after a pact on maritime boundaries gave Colombo rights over it.
On Monday, International Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stated Sri Lanka had detained greater than 6,000 Indian fishermen and 1,175 fishing vessels during the last 20 years, following the 1976 deal on the island, positioned 33 km (21 miles) off India’s coast.
His feedback come a day after Modi accused the Congress of getting “callously” given away the island, known as Katchatheevu.
“Weakening India’s unity, integrity and pursuits has been Congress’ method of working for 75 years and counting,” Modi stated on social media platform X.
In response, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge stated the 1974 settlement had been “based mostly on a pleasant gesture” and recommended that Modi’s feedback got here with an eye fixed to basic elections set to begin on April 19, at which he’ll search a uncommon third time period.
Kharge stated Modi raised the delicate subject on the eve of the elections, although his authorities’s lawyer basic had informed the Supreme Court docket in 2014 that India would “should go to battle” if it needed to recuperate the island from Sri Lanka.
The workplace of Sri Lanka’s president and its international ministry didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Discontent over the curtailed fishing rights has grown within the southern coastal state of Tamil Nadu neighbouring Sri Lanka, main to 2 authorized challenges to the agreements over the past twenty years which are nonetheless pending within the Supreme Court docket.
Tamil Nadu goes to the polls on April 19, the primary part of seven rounds of voting set to finish on June 1.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Celebration is making an attempt to make inroads within the state, the place it received not one of the state’s 39 seats in India’s 545-member parliament over the past election.
Jaishankar didn’t remark if the federal government would search to change the standing of the island, because the matter was within the Supreme Court docket.
(Reporting by Krishn Kaushik; Extra reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo; Enhancing by Clarence Fernandez)
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