Bhubaneswar, (Odisha connect): Prime Minister Narendra Modi opens the story of   Katchatheevu to criticize the opposition in the Lok Sabha. During the no-confidence motion debate, PM says it is the congress under the leadership of Indira Gandhi who gave this beautiful island on the Indian Ocean to Srilanka in 1974.

Katchatheevu is an island with 285 Acre land area, located between India’s Rameswaram and Neduntheevu of Sri Lanka. I was traditionally used by both the Sri Lankan and Indian fishermen and have equal ownership of both countries. In 1974, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi accepted Katchatheevu as Sri Lankan territory under the “Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime Agreement”.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi accepted Katchatheevu as Sri Lankan territory under the “Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime Agreement”.

As this agreement is not ratified by the parliament, some politicians have requested PM Modi to consider this as the sovereign part of India and claim our rights. The prime minister also said the DMK government in Tamil Nadu keeps writing to him urging him to bring Katchatheevu back to India. The fishermen of Tamilnadu owe this land’s cultural importance. It has a catholic shrine and people from both countries come to worship here. In 2010 the Sri Lankan government issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu government saying the Indian court cannot nullify the 1974 agreement.

“These people divided mother India into three parts for politics.,” the prime minister said in Loksabha launching a blistering attack on the Congress during his reply to the debate.   

 “Katchatheevu is an island between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. Somebody gave it to another country. It happened under the leadership of Indira Gandhi,” he said.

“Wasn’t that part of Maa Bharati there?” Modi asked in an apparent response to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s remark during the debate on Wednesday.

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