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| Lankan govt should devolve power to Tamils: Congress |
| Press Trust of India / New Delhi Jun 08, 2009, 12:18 IST |
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The Congress today demanded that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa should fulfil his promise of devolution of power to minority Tamils and end their "discrimination" to bring lasting peace in the island.
During the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address, Jayanthi Natarajan (Cong) said it was absolutely vital for the Sri Lankan government to ensure immediate relief to Tamils displaced due to the war with LTTE so that they can return to their homes.
The war zone needs to be de-mined so that the displaced Tamils can return to their homes, she said, stressing on proper relief and rehabilitation for the war-affected and medical attention to the injured.
"We demand that President Mahinda Rajapaksa ensures proper devolution of authority to Tamils (as was promised by him)," she said adding "discrimination" against minority Sri Lankan Tamils should end.
"Nothing short of this will satisfy us," she said.
Natarajan said "20,000 innocent Tamil civilians were killed" in the war against LTTE and it was time that the entire world community stands up to see that the Sri Lankan President fulfils his promise to treat "Sri Lankan Tamils as equal citizens."
As she made reference to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, K Malaisamy (AIADMK) and D Raja (CPI) wanted to make certain counter-points but were disallowed.
Natarajan alleged that the AIADMK and CPI made political issue out of the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils in the run-up to the general elections but are now silent. "They made political capital out of the suffering of Tamils," she said.
She also expressed concern over racist attacks on Indian students in Australia.
The Congress member asked the government to take up with the Australian authorities the urgent need to have multi-cultural police and greater sensitivity towards such incidents. "We will not tolerate such attacks," she said.
The Congress leader said the UPA government has got an overwhelming mandate to continue on the path of inclusive growth and widen the scope of socially inclusive development.
Replying to charges of UPA being "soft" on terror, she said the UPA had repealed POTA as it had "obnoxious" provisions of a confession before a police officer being acceptable as evidence and courts having to abide by public prosecutors' plea for rejection of bail.
A new anti-terror law minus these provisions was brought by UPA, she said adding that the POTA had been "misused".
Natarajan reeled out an array of figures to emphasise that the UPA government had delivered better on the economic front than the previous NDA regime. The nation's GDP grew by an average of 8.5 per cent in the past five years as against 5.8 per cent average growth rate in the NDA rule, she said.
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