The results of the Sri Lankan Presidential polls will come as a good news to India. The government seems to be quietly happy over the victory of incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
New Delhi believes Rajapaksa understands India's worries and concerns and will lead to political stability in the island nation, which still divided on ethnic lines.
Besides this, the Indian government is also happy over the fact that it doesn't need to deal with a new occupant in the Presidential Palace after showing signs of favouritism over Rajapaksa.
India and Sri Lanka have shared close political ties since independence but over the last two decades the relationship between the the two nations was strained after India's military blunder with the IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force) and subsequent assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) in 1991.
These incidents made sure that India always made a measured approach in it's foreign policy when it came to the Sri Lanka.
Certain political organisation regularly voicing the propaganda of the LTTE did not help the cause between the two countries either. India which had burnt it's fingers with the IPKF in the 1980s did not want to militarily get involved with the Lankan issue.
This meant that both China and Pakistan got an opportunity to establish military ties with Sri Lanka and increases their military sphere of influence in the Indian Ocean. For the South Block in New Delhi this became a cause of serious concern
Rajapaksa's opponent General Sarath Fonseka had close ties with the Chinese especially people among it's top military brass.
India's western neighbour Pakistan is also said to have shared warm relationship with Fonseka. From India's perspective Rajapaksa's win was very important not only for the betterment of relationship between the two countries but also for India's unchallenged influence over the Indian Ocean region.
China has already shown keen interest in establishing naval bases in Sri Lanka after having done so in Malayan peninsula.
New Delhi has now approached Colombo for the settlement of the Tamil refugees who have been torn apart by three decades of the civil war where they suffered both at the hands of the terrorist and the government.
The Indian government has expressed its wish to open a Consulate in Jaffna in Northern Sri Lanka once a strong hold of the LTTE. Sri Lanka in return will open a mission in Kolkata. Hope these ties go a long way for paving warm relationship between the two countries.
Related links
Oneindia Login
Equity