The Centre will take all steps required to get back boats of fishermen seized by the Sri Lankan Navy, Union Shipping Minister Pon Radhakrishnan said today.
"This morning we met representatives of the fishing community here. They requested us to get back boats seized by the Sri Lankan Navy. We will take all steps to bring back those boats," he said at an election rally here.
Radhakrishnan assured that the Centre would consider the fishermen's request for setting up a harbour in Aarukattuthurai-Vellampadagu and also to develop road connectivity between Vedharanyam and Thiruthuraipoondi.
Taking a dig at DMK and AIADMK, he said it was BJP, which has emerged as an 'alternative front', which had been serving the fishermen community in the region, though it was not in power in New Delhi or in Tamil Nadu.
He recalled that it was the BJP government headed by Modi in Gujarat which had sent the first cache of relief and rehabilitation material to those hit in the December 2014 tsunami in Tamil Nadu.
"BJP government constructed 150 houses for tsunami-hit people but there were no stickers pasted on it," he said in an apparent jibe against AIADMK for reportedly pasting stickers of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on relief material sent to people during the December 2015 floods in Chennai.
Senior BJP leader and Tamil Nadu in-charge P Muralidhar Rao alleged there was no power or water in Tamil Nadu and that the state has become 'TASMAC Nadu" (TASMAC refers to state-run liquor shops) as there was availability of liquor everywhere in the state.
Pointing out that BJP leaders, including External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and himself had rushed to Vedharanyam when two Tamil fishermen were killed by Sri Lankan Navy, he said "the number of fishermen killed during UPA regime at the Centre and when DMK was in power in Tamil Nadu, rose to 600".
"After BJP came to power two years back, not even a single fishermen was killed and even the five fishermen who faced death sentence were released by the Sri Lankan government unconditionally," he said.
It was Modi who visited Colombo and assured Tamils living in Sri Lanka of his support, he said.
"Chief Minister (Jayalalithaa) didn't visit flood-hit areas in Chennai during December 2015 floods... It was PM Narendra Modi who travelled 2,000 km and offered Rs 2,000 crore for relief efforts," he said.
