Manmohan Singh tells Sri Lankan President: 'Khurshid will represent India at CHOGM'

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Syed Akbaruddin on Sunday confirmed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo next week.

He further said that the Indian High Commission in Colombo has handed over a letter from Prime Minister to Mahinda Rajapaksa informing that External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will be representing the Prime Minister in the Summit meeting.

"I can confirm that the diplomatic process of informing Sri Lanka about the level of Indian participation at the CHOGM summit has now been completed," he said.

"Our High Commission in Colombo has handed over a letter from Prime Minister to President Rajapaksha in which he has indicated that he would not be able to attend the CHOGM summit, and has informed him that the External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will represent him at the summit meeting," he added.

There has been stiff opposition from the political outfits in Tamil Nadu, including DMK and the AIADMK, over the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Sri Lanka.

The Tamil Nadu assembly unanimously adopted a resolution last month that said India must boycott the session to register its protest against the Sri Lankan government's failure to investigate and punish those who allegedly persecuted the island's ethnic Tamils in the final phase of the civil war that ended in 2009 when the military feared the rebel Tamil Tigers.