Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha and other party leaders have slammed Union Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju, for saying that India would continue to provide training to Sri Lanka since it was a friendly nation.
“I am surprised to learn that the Government of India has openly declared that the said training will go on since Sri Lanka is a friendly country.
"This betrays the total insensitivity on the part of the Government of India towards the views of my Government as well as the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu,” Jayalalitha said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Opposition leader and member of the central government M Karunanidhi also came out strongly against Raju’s statement.
“After the 2009 ethnic war, Sri Lanka has been treating China and Pakistan as friendly countries than India. China has extended six-fold assistance to Lanka than India […] After all these, how can India term Lanka as a friendly country?
"At the most, the ties between India and Lanka can be described as one-sided friendship,” Karunanidhi said.
MDMK general secretary Vaiko also criticised the central government for supporting a regime that committed a “gruesome and genocidal war” on the island.
“Could they do it to any other State in India?,” he asked and added that Raju’s statement was the sentiment of the government.
“This is the statement reflecting views of the Centre. This is the statement of the PM and Sonia Gandhi. Otherwise, the Minister would have been pulled up by now,” he said.
