BJP General Secretary P. Muralidhar Rao Rao, who is currently in Colombo, has told The New Indian Express “Rest assured Vaiko is our partner, not Rajapaksa” when asked whether the The BJP was cozying up to the Sri Lankan President abandoning its ally the MDMK and its leader.

Rao has said that the objective of the protesters in Tamil Nadu and those of the BJP are the same, which is to secure an honourable settlement of the Tamil question. However, unlike the Tamil Nadu politicians who seem to be promoting boycotting Sri Lanka, BJP believes in engagement. Therefore the difference in is the method, not the goal, he has added. “We in the BJP believe that constant engagement with all the stakeholders is needed to secure justice for the Tamils,” Rao has said.

Muralidhar Rao, who is also in charge of Tamil Nadu section in the BJP, has also told the Express on Friday, that he and his party colleagues are in Sri Lanka meeting President Mahinda Rajapaksa and other leaders, because the BJP government at New Delhi believes that India needs to engage the Lankan government to solve the Tamil question.

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He has added further that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had set the tone by meeting with both President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the TNA. “Modi had also been forthright with Rajapaksa even at his very first meeting with him. If he was not committed to the Tamil cause, he would not have done so,” Rao has pointed out.

Rao told Lankan Foreign Minister G L Peiris that India is not imposing anything on Sri Lanka but only asking Lanka to implement its own constitutional provisions according to the 13th Amendment.

However, Rao has also said that, “It is better for the government and the TNA to talk to each other first before consulting others.”