Chidambaram joins critics of India’s stand on Lanka

India's Tamil Nadu-based Dravidian parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam – normally bitter rivals – on Friday united with non-political pro-Tamil organisations to slam India's abstention from voting on a United Nations resolution against Sri Lanka.

The UN resolution sought an international investigation into the alleged war crimes during the final phase of the island's civil war which ended in 2009.

Even union finance minister P Chidambaram – a leading light of the ruling United Progressive Alliance government, which took the decision to abstain – went so far as to tell reporters at Chennai airport on Friday, "Personally I feel India should have supported the resolution."

Chidambaram, a Congress member, is from Tamil Nadu. He has decided not to contest the upcoming general election, but his decision is unlikely to be related to the UN resolution since it was announced earlier.

India on Thursday joined 11 other countries in abstaining from voting on the UN Human Rights Council resolution in Geneva calling for a probe into alleged war crimes by Sri Lanka. However, the resolution was adopted, with 23 voting in favour and 12 against.

The 47-member UNHRC accepted the resolution presented by the US on behalf of a bloc that included Britain.

The leader of Tamizhaga Desiya Koottani, a pro-Tamil organisation, Sambandham said, "We are very angry and upset that India did not vote against Sri Lanka."

Initial reactions from the two Dravidian majors the DMK and the AIADMK were similar, except AIADMK was more aggressive in its outrage against New Delhi.

"We are extremely upset. India should have voted against Sri Lanka. New Delhi has betrayed," DMK spokesperson T K S Elangovan told a TV channel.

AIADMK leader and former state finance minister C Ponnaiyan alleged that New Delhi was consistently indifferent to Tamils and Tamil sentiments. "So it was not surprising that it helped the Sri Lankan government of its friend Rajapakse by abstaining," he said.

Ponnaiyan was echoing the sentiments of his leader and Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa who had demanded that India move a resolution at UNHCR and strengthen the US resolution against Sri Lanka.

She has raised this issue at every public meeting during her campaign for the general elections. This coupled with the Tamil fishermen issue form a highly emotive situation in Tamil Nadu and she paints the Congress and the DMK with the same brush on this.

India had in 2009, 2012 and 2013 voted in favour of the resolutions demanding a probe into the alleged massacre of Sri Lankan Tamils in the closing stages of the civil war. But this time, with elections around the corner and a new government in the offing, it has changed tack.