Sri Lanka has made it amply clear that it does not feel the need to go back on negotiations for Katchatheevu, the contested island that New Delhi ceded to Colombo five decades ago.
The matter that had always been quietly bubbling in the background has now become a major source of friction in India's ongoing election season.
In advance of India's general election, which starts on April 19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party reawakened the issue, highlighting the complaints of Indian fishermen who were harmed by a 1976 pact that limited their access to waters around the island.
"This is an issue debated and settled 50 years ago and there is no need to have more discussions on this," Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabry has said to Hiru TV on Wednesday.
"I don't think it will arise," he added, clearly stating that the issue of changing the status of the island has not been officially brought up. Katchatheevu is approximately 33 kilometers (21 miles) off India's coast, in the Palk Strait, dividing the two South Asian countries.
The claim follows after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made the 115-hectare (285-acre) island a campaign highlight, accusing opposition Congress party of having "callously" given up the island during its tenure in power.
With its sights set on Tamil Nadu—a coastal province directly across from the island where the BJP won none of the 39 seats in parliament in the last election—the government is looking to make electoral gains. Tamil Nadu votes on April 19, the start of India's seven-stage voting process that concludes June 1.
India formally transferred Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974, and two years later, both nations signed a maritime agreement that limited fishing rights. However, resentment over the handover and the resulting restrictions has led to two unresolved legal petitions in India’s Supreme Court over the past two decades.
In spite of the agreement, fishermen from both countries have been found to cross the fishing limits around the unpopulated island every now and then.
Earlier during the week, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar disclosed that, since the agreement took effect, more than 6,000 Indian fishermen and 1,175 Indian vessels had been arrested by Sri Lankan authorities for crossing the lines.
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