CHENNAI: Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK should stop spreading ‘misinformation’ on the Katchatheevu issue.
Sitharaman tagged a video clip-posted by an ‘X’ handle-which showed late CM Jayalalithaa’s reply to DMK legislator K Ponmudy in the Assembly years ago.
In the Assembly, Jayalalithaa had said (during 2011-16) that the DMK members had no locus-standi to pose questions on Katchatheevu. It was during the DMK regime, when M Karunanidhi was the CM, Katchatheevu island was ceded to Sri Lanka by the Union government.
“What Karunanidhi was doing when the Centre signed pact in 1974 and 1976 to cede the island?” she (Jayalalthaa) had asked then (in the purported video).
She (Jayalalithaa) did not say in 1991 that she would retrieve Katchatheevu by ‘mobilising troops.’ It is the DMK that is fully responsible for the travails , Nirmala Sitharaman alleged.