Vijay’s Tribute to Slain LTTE Chief Triggers Controversy, BJP Targets Rahul Gandhi

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, May 19: The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay paying tributes on Monday to the banned Sri Lankan outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)’s founder, V Prabhakaran, has expectedly triggered a massive controversy as his organisation was responsible for the assassination of the former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi while the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government is supported by the Congress.

Vijay’s move triggered a sharp political confrontation, with the BJP accusing him of indirectly glorifying the LTTE and questioning the Congress party’s political stance on the issue. Not to miss the opportunity to target the Congress, the BJP on Tuesday took a potshot at its rival over this, seeking to remind Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who was instrumental in the Congress becoming the first party to extend support to the TVK, that the LTTE was responsible for his father’s assassination.

Defending Vijay, sources in his party stressed that his reference was to the massacre of thousands of Tamils in Sri Lanka and not just about Prabhakaran’s death. Prabhakaran was named the main accused in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991 and the LTTE was banned in India for its role in the high-profile killing of a former prime minister. The Congress, long helmed by the Gandhi family, now backs Vijay’s minority government in Tamil Nadu.

Prabhakaran was shot dead by the Lankan army in Mullivaikkal in Sri Lanka on May 18, 2009. On his death anniversary, Vijay on Monday referred to the place and wrote on X, “We will carry the memories of Mullivaikkal in our hearts! We will always stand in solidarity for the rights of our Tamil kin living across the sea!”

The BJP’s media cell chief Amit Malviya attacked Rahul Gandhi over Vijay’s tribute to Prabhakaran, reminding him that the LTTE had a role in the assassination of his father. “Tamil Nadu’s new Chief Minister has paid homage to LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, whose outfit assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Of course, Rahul Gandhi would have no problem with it, as long as the Congress gets a slice of power. After all, the DMK too was an LTTE apologist, yet Congress remained perfectly comfortable in alliance with it,” he said.

TVK sources say that the reference of ‘Mullivaikkal’ is also about the massacre of thousands of Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka, and not just about the death of former LTTE chief Prabhakaran. It’s the duty of any right-thinking leader to remember the loss of innocent lives, the sources said. The Lankan Tamil population across the world and a section of Tamils in India observe May 18 as the Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day (or Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day) as a remembrance day for civilians and fighters who lost their lives during the conflict. Vijay’s post was widely interpreted by his supporters as a statement backing Tamil rights and acknowledging the suffering endured during the war.

It remembers the tens of thousands of Tamil civilians who were killed, injured, or disappeared during the final, brutal offensive in the coastal village of Mullivaikkal, which marked the tragic end of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009. The ethnic war lasting nearly 30 years had begun with a demand for a separate homeland for Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka but turned into a full-fledged armed war in its final phase.

The Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue was not a major issue in the recent polls, but Vijay, whose TVK eventually swept power, had made a reference to the former LTTE chief during his campaigns. Speaking in Nagapattinam district last September, he had said, “Our umbilical-cord kin, the Eelam Tamils, whether they are in Sri Lanka or anywhere else in the world, are suffering after losing a leader who showed them motherly affection.”

“It is our duty to raise our voice for them,” he had said. Vijay’s tribute for the former LTTE chief is rare since parties in power in Tamil Nadu generally refrain from being seen in support of Prabhakaran. His minority government stays afloat with the support of VCK — known for its pro-LTTE stance.

The latest controversy underscores the continued political sensitivity surrounding the Sri Lankan Tamil issue in Tamil Nadu, where Mullivaikkal remains a deeply emotional and symbolic subject for many Tamils.