It seems like everyday business with the smell of salty sea water and fish at the boat jetty in Tamil Nadu’s Rameshwaram but there is a new spirited chatter here on Katchatheevu island — only about 16 nautical miles from this point — which has come into focus after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a fortnight before Tamil Nadu goes to polls on April 19, blamed the Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (then led by Indira Gaandhi and M Karunanidhi, respectively) for ceding the Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka in 1974.

Edison Aruldas, who was born the same year when the island was ceded, accompanies his father on the boat to fish across Katchatheevu since he was six years old. He recalls a time when it was not so hostile with the Sri Lankan navy in the high seas. “As a child I remember a navy officer giving bread and jam. We would exchange food when we met mid-sea,” said Aruldas, now the head of the Yagappa fishermen’s organisation. This was even after India had ceded the island, but the situation, he says, turned violent after the anti-Tamil riots which began in 1981 in Sri Lanka. The ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese majority and the Hindu Tamil minority led to a 30-year-long civil war which ended in 2009 with the island nation’s army crushing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who fought for separate statehood for Tamils in Lanka.

For Edison and his fishermen peers here, it no longer matters who gave away the uninhabited island (spanning 1.6 km in length and 300 mts in breadth in the Palk Bay between India and Sri Lanka) five decades ago. It has not been an election issue in Tamil Nadu in recent years. On the ground it doesn’t have much resonance in the constituency where the local economy is fed by fishing and its allied activities with a coastline of 271 km and Rameshwaram in a Hindu pilgrimage site which was also Modi’s last stop before he went for the Ram temple consecration in Ayodhya in January.

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They want their current issues to be solved from retrieving the rights of Indian fishermen to fish in Katchatheevu to bringing back arrested fishermen and detained boats to reducing the cost of diesel prices. They want to access the island to dry their fishing nets and halt for repair work– which is promised under article 5 of the 1974 agreement to determine the boundary line between India and Sri Lanka in the presence of late prime minister Indira Gandhi and her Sri Lankan counterpart Sirimavo Bandaranayake. “Subject to the foregoing, Indian fishermen and pilgrims will enjoy access to visit Kachchativu as hitherto, and will not be required by Sri Lanka to obtain travel documents or visas for these purposes,” states the Boundary Agreement in Historic Waters between the two countries. However, Katchatheevu was declared a “No Go Zone” for Indians in 1976 after the two countries reached another agreement. The only time when Indian fishermen are allowed into Katchatheevu is to attend the annual three-day festival at the St Anthony’s Church on the island. Around 3,500 Tamil fishermen attended it last March. The fishermen say that the Indian side doesn’t have much fish and they are forced to go past Katchatheevu and the Indian Maritime Border Line (IMBL which is 12 nautical miles from this point) for fish which leads to their arrest by the island nation.

“The meaning of enjoyment here is that we can safely access the island which we cannot do now. We are being attacked and arrested and our boats caught. We want our rights to fish in Katchatheevu to be restored,” says a fisherman S Dominic. On the Bharatiya Janata Party’s stand that the Union government is trying to retrieve Katchatheevu which then would lead to fishing rights for Indians, the fishermen questioned why this was not done for the last 10 years. “If they bring back our arrested fishermen and boats before April 19, we are ready to vote for the BJP,” says Edison. A month after Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, his boat number 038 was downed by the Lankan navy at 1.30am in Katchatheevu, he said. “Seven of my labourers were on that boat and another adjacent boat of ours saved them,” he said. “Before that during the Congress regime my boats were caught thrice but they were sent back. Our main problem during the Congress regime was the multiple shooting by the Sri Lankan navy against our fishermen.”

Of the 1,000 odd boats in Rameshwaram, 360 boats are caught in Lanka and 10 fishermen remain imprisoned in the island in the last decade, said, Fishermen’s Association President, Emiric Sesupattiyam. “In my 50 years of fishing this is the highest number of boats that have been impounded,” he said. “First, the BJP government should help us by bringing our boats and fishermen back. This is what we are angry about. This is the real issue. But they are talking about Katchatheevu as though it happened yesterday,” another fisherman J Sagayam said.

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Rameshwaram is part of the Ramanathapuram constituency where former chief minister and expelled AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam (OPS) is fighting for political relevance. OPS is now contesting as an independent but with the support of the BJP. In a constituency with 75% Hindus, 19% Muslims and 6% Christian, the AIADMK has fielded P Jeyaperumal, DMK has fielded incumbent IUML’s Nawaz Kani. OPS is facing another challenge here since four of his namesake- O Panneerselvam- are also contesting. His supporters have blamed the AIADMK led by Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) for playing this trick to confuse voters since OPS is contesting on an independent symbol. OPS who has all his life contested under the iconic two-leaves symbol of the AIADMK is trying hard to take his independent symbol-jackfruit- to the voters. OPS has not commented on Katchatheevu but his former colleague turned rival EPS who quit the BJP last September attacked the national party.

Late former AIADMK chief minister J Jayalalithaa filed a case in the Supreme Court in 2008 to retrieve Katchatheevu, EPS said while the case is pending. “For the past ten years, the BJP government did not take steps to retrieve Kathchatheevu. Now they are bringing it up for political gain ahead of the elections,” EPS said, blaming the DMK-Congress and the BJP stating that only the AIADMK truly fought for the issue. Chief minister and DMK president MK Stalin raised concerns on how ‘wrong information’ concerning India’s national security was given under the RTI to BJP’s Tamil Nadu state president K Annamalai. It was based on this RTI reply that the BJP claimed that the then UPA government’s decision to cede the island to Sri Lanka affected national interests. External affairs minister S Jaishankar on April 1 said that the RTI reveals that DMK-led by Karunanidhi was consulted and he was inclined to accept” the transfer of the island but couldn’t be expected to take a public stand in favour of it for political reasons.

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Stalin on April 2 said that in earlier RTIs on Katchatheevu the BJP government had not provided answers by stating that the subject is sub judice as a case is pending before the Supreme Court. “The BJP regime in 2015 said that Katchatheevu had never been a part of India. That information was provided by S Jaishankar who was the then foreign secretary,” Stalin said. “Since the elections are round the corner, they have changed the information as per their wish. Why this somersault?” Jaishankar had earlier refuted the Opposition’s allegation that the issue is being politicised ahead of the elections and said it continues to be a live topic.