Picture : Twitter/ ANI
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told an all-party meeting that Sri Lanka is facing ‘a very serious crisis’ that makes India naturally worried. He dismissed suggestions about such a situation arising in India.
Jaishankar, who made the initial remarks, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi were among the senior members of the government at the briefing, which was also attended by P Chidambaram and Manickam Tagore of the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar and T R Baalu and M M Abdulla of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
“The reason we took the initiative to request you all to join an all-party meeting was…this is a very serious crisis and what we are seeing in Sri Lanka is in many ways an unprecedented situation,” Jaishankar said.
“It is a matter which pertains to a very close neighbour and given the near proximity, we naturally worry about the consequences, the spillover it has for us,” he added.
Jaishankar also said there have seen some ‘misinformed comparisons’ in the context of Sri Lanka wherein some people have asked whether ‘can such a situation happen in India’.
M Thambidurai (the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), Saugata Ray (the Trinamool Congress), Farooq Abdullah (the National Conference), Sanjay Singh (the Aam Aadmi Party), Keshava Rao (the Telangana Rashtra Samiti), Ritesh Pandey (the Bahujan Samaj Party), Vijayasai Reddy (the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress) and Vaiko (the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) were among those who attended the meeting.
Later addressing the media as quoted by ANI, Jaishankar said, The big lessons of Sri Lanka to be drawn on fiscal prudence and good governance, fortunately in this country, under the leadership of the PM we have both in very ample measure. We’ve approached it(Sri Lanka situation)in a very humanistic way as part of our neighbourhood first policy. They’re still in a very delicate situation. As their discussions with IMF go forward, whatever support we can give in terms of working with relevant agencies, we’ll do.
After the meeting National Conference patron Farooq Abdullah told ANI, The nation (Sri Lanka) is dying. We’ve to save that country. Finance Secretary said that our condition is not bad & our reserves are better. China’s debt trap is not the only concern for (Sri Lanka). They have taken money from many places.
