Tamil Nadu’s Sri Lanka Eelam conference running into snags
A conference organized by the DMK and other Tamil parties in the state of Tamil Nadu sympathetic to the Eelam cause in Sri Lanka appears to be running into problems.
Both the Central government of India and the Tamil Nadu state government have raised objections to certain aspects of the Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) conference to be held in YMCA grounds at Royapettah in Chennai Sunday, August 12, a PTI report said.
The Central government has told the Madras High Court that the organizers cannot use the word ‘Eelam’ in the heading of the international conference.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs in a communication has told the organizers that the Ministry has no objection, from a political angle, to the proposed international conference with foreign participants, provided that the word ‘Eelam’ may be dropped from the title of the conference.
The Tamil Nadu government has raised objection to the venue of the Eelam conference saying that it may deny permission to hold the conference as the venue chosen by the organizers is not big enough to hold the crowd the organizers are expecting.
Originally the conference was planned at Villupuram, 160 km from the city, for August 5, but the venue and the date were changed for the convenience of foreign delegates, the Hindu reported.
A senior state official has said that the TN government may deny permission since the YMCA ground was located near a government hospital.
The organizers expect over 100,000 people and the ground can occupy only 8,000 people, the official has said.
The official s fear the large number of crowd and with about 1250 vehicles would cause traffic jams and chaos in the area and cause inconvenience to the hospital and general public.
The DMK leader M. Karunanidhi has revived the defunct TESO recently and organized its first conference to be held on Sunday.
Indian media reported that although the organizers had invited scores of foreign leaders besides some Sri Lankan Tamil leaders, the foreign participation is unlikely as the Indian missions have reportedly refused them visas.
