The BJP’s Tamil Nadu state secretary warned that if citizenship was granted to Eelam Tamil refugees then Sri Lanka would become a “a complete Buddhist land” and claimed that the DMK was conspiring with Sri Lanka’s prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

K T Raghavan, the state secretary for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s incumbent party, accused the DMK of failing the Eelam Tamils and noted that it had also previously denied Paravathi Amma, mother of LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, entry to Tamil Nadu for medical treatment.

“Rajapakse has come back to power now,” said Ragahavan. “If Sri Lankan Tamil refugees are given citizenship as demanded by DMK, the remaining Tamils in Sri Lanka will also be chased away to India. Sri Lanka will become a complete Buddhist land. We should understand the conspiracy and sabotage it.”

He also said that the “Congress government had supported the Lankan government in the war”. “Despite being an ally, DMK had not done anything to stop the killings. So, they need not shed tears for them now."

Raghavan went on to claim that the BJP government was working on resettlement of Eelam Tamils, stating that “refugees prefer to go home and resume their life there”.

“BJP government is working on the resettlement of the refugees in their own country for which our government constructed 50,000 houses there and is in touch with the Sri Lankan government,” he said.

Protests have erupted across India opposing the disputed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which will grant citizenship to persecuted immigrants of six non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and has been criticised for excluding Eelam Tamils and Muslims.