Tamil Nadu Assembly Passes Resolution Seeking Katchatheevu Islet's Retrieval

On Wednesday, the Tamil Nadu Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on the Center to reclaim the Katchatheevu islet, which was given to Sri Lanka, as a long-term fix to safeguard the state's fishermen's traditional fishing rights.

"It has become a habit for some political parties to spread a false information campaign that it was the state government that ceded Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka," said Chief Minister M K Stalin, who moved the resolution. The similar error is being made by the Union administration as well. This is unfortunate and intolerable," he declared.

Then-chief minister M Karunanidhi was adamantly against giving up Katchatheevu, and even the DMK MPs protested. On June 28, 1974, Kalaignar (Karunanidhi) called an all-party conference and passed a resolution denouncing the Katchatheevu Agreement, one day after it was signed. He expressed "deep disappointment over the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement" in a letter to the then-prime minister that same day, according to Stalin.