The BJP’s Katchatheevu narrative has drawn attention to India getting sovereign rights over the bio-diverse Wadge Bank close to Kanyakumari where the Modi government had earlier this year invited bids for oil exploration.

The Centre’s move had led to a local protest in Kanyakumari and neighbouring areas over the threat such activity could pose to the ecosystem.

Wadge Bank came to India as part of the second of the two accords signed with Sri Lanka in the 1970s which the BJP is now using to beat the Congress and the DMK with after the governments of both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi adhered to them.

On March 23, 1976, India and Sri Lanka signed the agreement on the maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal as part of which it was agreed that the Wadge Bank “lies within the exclusive economic zone of India, and India shall have sovereign rights over the area and its resources”. In the general description of Wadge Bank annexed with the treaty shared with the United Nations, it is described as “outside the territorial waters of India”.

At the request of Sri Lanka and as a gesture of goodwill, India agreed that Lankan fishing vessels licensed by the Government of India could fish in Wadge Bank for three years from its establishment as an exclusive economic zone of India with the stipulation that only six such vessels can fish and their catch cannot exceed 2,000 tonnes in a year.

And, again on the request of the Sri Lankan government, India agreed to provide Colombo 2,000 tonnes of fish of the quality, species and at the price mutually agreed by the two sides for five years after the Lankans stopped fishing at the Wadge Bank.

Considered India’s biggest fishery resource, the Wadge Bank — according to the Kochi-based Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute — is about 4,000sqmiles.

Reminded of this slice of maritime history, the Congress used it to counter the BJP narrative. “The PM is desperate. Indian citizenship for 600,000 stateless Sri Lankan Tamils and sovereignty over Wadge Bank were HUGE achievements of Indira Gandhi that he is now trying to distort and erase. His statements as those of his EAM are both pathetic and dangerous,” Jairam Ramesh, the Congress general secretary in charge of communications, posted on X, referring to external affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s briefing on Katchatheevu at the BJP office on Monday where he made no mention of Wadge Bank.

After initially ignoring the BJP’s narrative on Katchatheevu, the Sri Lankan media has begun to take note in the face of the sustained campaign.

Viewing it as poll-related, the Daily Mirror in its editorial said: “It appears Premier Modi and his External Affairs Minister are trying to stir anti-Sri Lanka feelings in Tamil Nadu…. Lankans expected more of Indian leaders and have often tended to look at its top leaders as statesmen and stateswomen rather than opportunistic politicians. Great Indian personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Indira Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri are among the names that come to mind.”