DMK crisis: Mamata backs Congress
New Delhi, Mar 20 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said that her Trinamool Congress (TMC) party will support the Congress-led Central government's decision on Sri Lanka.
Banerjee, who quit the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition last year, has said she will back it on whatever stand it takes at Geneva, where a resolution on alleged war crimes by Sri Lanka will be put to vote on Thursday.
"We are deeply concerned about the atrocities meted out to a section of Tamil population in a foreign country," Banerjee said in a statement on her Facebook page.
However, she added, "Our Party follows a policy that we should not interfere into issues involving external relations with foreign countries. We leave it for the Central Government to decide on such issues."
India's Congress-led coalition government had found itself in a crisis on Tuesday after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) quit the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) over its stance against Sri Lanka.
The Tamil Nadu-based party had wanted India to go for a strongly worded resolution against Sri Lanka for its alleged atrocities and killings of ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka that followed after the country's bloody civil war.
The DMK has 18 members in the parliament and was critical to the Congress to sustain the ruling coalition, which suffered heavily after the pullout of TMC last year in September over economic issues.
The issue of Sri Lankan war crimes was re-ignited recently after photos of the alleged cold-blooded killing of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Velupillai Prabhakaran's 12-year-old son came to light.