New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS) Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday sent a letter of regret to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, explaining that he is unable to personally attend the Commonwealth summit in Colombo next week.
In the letter, the prime minister said External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid would represent him at the Nov 15-17 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the external affairs ministry said.
The letter was delivered by the Indian High Commission in Colombo, ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.
The UPA government decided against sending Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, taking into consideration protests by Tamil Nadu parties and opposition from some central Congress ministers over Sri Lanka's reported human rights violations and its failure to devolve power to the Tamil minority.
The prime minister, who was in Chhattisgarh Saturday, campaigning for the Congress ahead of assembly elections, returned to the capital at night.
While Khurshid would head the Indian delegation to the CHOGM summit of 53 countries being held in Asia after two decades, the other Indian officials would be Navtej Sarna, additional secretary in the external affairs ministry, Pavan Kapoor, joint secretary, UN political division of the ministry, and Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh.
The decision to keep the prime minister away from Colombo has been hailed by DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi, who said it was "somewhat comforting that at least Manmohan Singh has listened to our voice".
Khurshid Sunday defended the decision of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to attend the summit.
Speaking to news channel NDTV, Khurshid said: "I don't think we should look at any one single dimension to this decision. Let's not forget that the prime minister doesn't always go to Commonwealth (meetings)."
He said there "are a lot of issues in Tamil Nadu and many other important things that are on the prime minister's plate right now. So, there could be a lot of reasons that went into this decision."
Sri Lanka was very keen to see Manmohan Singh at the summit. It sent its Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris in August to personally hand over the invitation.
The prime minister, a strong votary of good neighbourly relations, was reportedly keen to attend the GHOGM. The external affairs ministry also pushed for his attendance at the summit, keeping in mind India's overall security and strategic interests.
The DMK and the AIADMK, along with other Tamil parties, however, demanded that India boycott the summit. Central ministers P. Chidambaram, Jayanthi Natarajan and G.K. Vasan -- all hailing from Tamil Nadu -- as well as V. Narayanasamy -- who is from Puduchery -- were pressing the prime minister that he keep in mind Tamil interests while deciding, especially with the general elections in the country just months ahead.
The Congress Core Group at its Friday meeting too decided against the prime minister going to Sri Lanka.
The more vocal critics in Tamil Nadu, which is separated from Sri Lanka by a strip of sea, accused the Sri Lankan military of killing innocent ethnic Tamil civilians during the final stages of the war that crushed the Tamil Tigers in May 2009.
There is also anger in Tamil Nadu over the continuing attacks on Indian fishermen in the sea by the Sri Lanka Navy. Separately, many in India are upset that Sri Lanka has gone back on promises it made to New Delhi when the war was raging on devolving autonomy to the Tamil minority.
There have been two occasions since 1993 when India sent its external affairs minister to attend the Commonwealth summit in place of the prime minister.
In 1995 at Auckland, New Zealand, Pranab Mukherjee as external affairs minister led the Indian delegation. In 2002 in Coolum, Australia, it was Jaswant Singh as the external affairs minister who went in place of the prime minister.
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