J Jayalalithaa, AIADMK general secretary and Chief Minister, scored a tactical victory against her eternal rival M Karunanidhi of the DMK when she became the first main line politician in the State to rake up the Sri lankan ethnic Tamil issue in the 2016 Assembly election. Though the ethnic Tamil problem in Sri lanka has ceased to be a poll issue in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa declared in her Tiruchirappalli campaign rally that she would work for ushering in a separate Tamil Eelam. “We will press the Centre to dual citizenship to Sri lankan Tamils in Tamil Nadu so that they would get employment opportunities easily,” announced Jayalalithaa during her well attended rally in Tiruchirappalli.
Sri lanka experts in Tamil Nadu see this as a well calculated move on the part of Jayalalithaa. “The suggestion that Tamils from Sri lanka should be offered dual ctizens have been made in the past by many Sri lanak experts based in Tamil Nadu. This is the first time a politician is raking up this issue,” RS Vasan, former Commodore in Indian Navy and director, Chennai Centre for China Studies, told The Pioneer.
But Vasan said he was not sure whether this move would fetch a few thousand votes to the AIADMK kitty. “This proposal , I am sure would go well with both the Sri lankan Tamils as well as the Sinhalas because it is a win-win situation. This will certainly help improve the bilateral relations between India and Sri lanka”, said the former Commodore who wasone of the naval commanders who saw action in the island nation during the tenure of the Indian Peace Keeping Force.
Jayalalithaa also described Karunanidhi a hypocrite for his “crocodile tears” for the Tamils in Sri lanka. “Karunanidhi claims he withdrew support to the UPA Government in 2013 because of his differences with the Congress over the Tamil issue in Sri lanka. But when it was time for Rajya Sabha election, he begged with the same Congress for support to his daughter Kanimozhi. This indicates that his decision to withdraw support for the UPA Government in 2013 was for some other reason,” said Jayalalithaa.
Commodore Vasan pointed out that Prime Minister Modi during his trip to USA and UK had spoke about offering dual citizenship for Indians working in those countries. “This arrangement could be extended to the Tamils from Sri lanka too as we have more than a lakh Sri lankan refugees in and around Chennai,” he said.
Neither the DMK nor the MDMK of Vaiko, which never fail to mention about the Tamil ethnic issue in the island nation has reacted to the move by Jayalalithaa. The DMK and the MDMK are engaged in a different kind of war against each other as Vaiko has blamed Karunanidhi and the Dravidian major for instigating the Thevar community at Kalingapatti against him to force him out of the election. Vaiko declared on Monday that he would not contest the assembly election as he feared that the DMK was trying to foment communal trouble in the constituency to defeat him.