Lankan crisis a chance to ensure Tamils of due rights, says Alagiri

VELLORE: The crisis in Sri Lanka was a good opportunity for the state and Centre to ensure the rights of Lankan Tamils who were treated as second-class citizens, said TNCC president KS Alagiri in Vellore on Sunday.

Alagiri who was in Vellore to pay his respect at the Sepoy Mutiny stupa said the governments should work on the fact that help sent from India to the island was used not only for Tamils but also for Lankans. This was the time to take the right decision on this issue, he said. Elaborating, he said Sri Lanka crumbled due to that country not having any production in the agriculture, industries and services sectors. The nation lived on borrowed finances and when China refused to bail them out, the nation fell.

India would not face such issues as it was a mixed economy where both private and government sectors were given importance by Prime Ministers right from Nehru, Manmohan Singh and minister P Chidambaram.

Stating that the Agniveer scheme would only enable the BJP to get weapon trained cadre and booth committee workers after 4 years, Alagiri equated the job scheme to BJP’s agriculture laws, demonetization and GST which were not beneficial to the people.

Flaying the release of Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict AG Perarivalan, Alagiri said there was no justification for this and added that those in prison for more than 20 years for various crimes could thus be released and jail staff be transferred to the Transport Department and jails converted to godowns so that government facilities did not go waste.