Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader and Parliamentarian Rauff Hakeem met Tamil Nadu’s Minister for Public Works and Sports Adhav Arjuna at the Tamil Nadu Secretariat in Chennai on Friday, in the first publicly disclosed engagement between an SLMC leadership delegation and a minister in the new Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK)-led state government.
The two sides held discussions on the current political situation in Sri Lanka and matters concerning minority communities, Newswire reported. Hakeem informed the Tamil Nadu minister that representatives of Sri Lanka’s minority political parties are expected to jointly visit Tamil Nadu in the near future to meet Chief Minister Joseph Vijay.
The discussions focused on issues affecting minority communities and on strengthening engagement between political representatives from Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. No formal joint statement was issued after the meeting.
The outreach extends a broader pattern of Sri Lankan opposition and minority-party engagement with the new Tamil Nadu administration since Vijay was sworn in as Chief Minister on May 10 and cleared a floor test with 144 MLAs. Earlier engagements included Vijay’s letter to External Affairs Minister Jaishankar over six Sri Lankan fishermen detained at the Mandapam camp and Fisheries Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar’s bilateral talks with the TVK government on bottom-trawling.
The SLMC has been part of fluid alliance arrangements in Parliament since the November 2024 election, and Hakeem’s Supreme Court petition seeking formal recognition of SLMC parliamentary identity was dismissed without hearing in May. The Chennai outreach signals SLMC’s continuing search for external political platforms even as the party’s domestic parliamentary status remains contested.
Source: Newswire.
