Political parties in Tamil Nadu expressed shock and disbelief while condemning India’s decision to abstain from a US sponsored resolution at the UN Human Right Council mandating an international inquiry into mass atrocities in Sri Lanka.

See various reports by Times of India (here and here), The Hindu (here and here), Hindustan Times (here), Business Standard (here), domain-b.com (here ) and PTI (here).

The below is a summary of key reactions.

Initial reactions from the two Dravidian majors the DMK and the AIADMK were similar, except DMK was more aggressive in its outrage against New Delhi, reports said.

The ruling AIADMK party slammed the Congress government as ‘consistently indifferent to Tamils and Tamil sentiments’. As such, senior party figure C Ponnaiyan said "it was not surprising that it helped the Sri Lankan government of its friend Rajapakse by abstaining."

AIADMK general secretary and Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa has repeatedly demanded that India move a resolution at UNHCR and strengthen the US resolution against Sri Lanka, and last week had written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding India take a strong stand against Sri Lanka in Geneva.

The main opposition DMK party, which until recently was allied to Congress in India’s ruling coalition was more aggressive in its condemnation, reports said.

Denouncing India’s decision to abstain as ‘inhumane’, DMK leader M Karunanidhi said “India has made us hang our head in shame in front of the international community.”

"While the concerns of the International community [about Sri Lanka] bring us solace, the attitude of the Indian government has saddened and disappointed Tamils not only in Tamil Nadu but across the globe," Karunanidhi said.

"It is condemnable. Indian government's move will not be accepted by even Congress cadres in Tamil Nadu," the DMK chief added.

Even the Indian finance minister, P Chidambaram, who is elected from Tamil Nadu, sought to distance himself from the decision, saying “Personally I feel India should have supported the resolution.”

In reference to the government’s justification of the abstention as principled ‘non-inteference’, Karunanidhi pointed out the foreign policies adopted by former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru on apartheid in South Africa and Indira Gandhi to free Bangladesh made clear that India has history of intervening in other states in crisis.

Recalling he had said on Wednesday, the eve of the vote, the DMK would pardon the 'ingratitude' of the Congress, in a bid to form a secular government at the Centre after the polls, Karunanidhi said the government’s decision against the Tamils could shut the door on that move.

MDMK founder Vaiko also slammed India's abstention as an 'unpardonable crime'.

Describing India’s abstention as ‘shameful’, the Communist Party of India (CPI) party’s national council secretary, D. Raja, said it was another betrayal of the Sri Lankan Tamils’ cause by the Indian government.

"It is another act of betrayal by the Congress-led UPA government , which had earlier supported a resolution though it was watered down. Now with the report of Navi Pillay, UN Human Rights Commissioner, who has demanded an investigation into human rights violations and war crimes in Sri Lanka , there was a need for a credible probe," he said.

“India knows better than any other country about what happened in Sri Lanka as everything happened with the knowledge of the Indian government. India should have taken the lead in sponsoring the resolution against Sri Lanka. But it has failed. The conduct of India’s foreign policy is shameful,” Mr. Raja said.

President of the Tamil Nadu arm of the national BJP, Pon Radhakrishnan, condemned the Congress-led government for “joining hands with the Rajapakse regime in Sri Lanka.”

The Tamil Nadu BJP also dismissed Chidambaram's suggestion that the decision might have been made by bureacrats in the External Affairs Ministry as 'a lame excuse' and came down hard on him for trying to shift the blame.

"Congress never took a stance in support of Sri Lankan Tamils and now they are blaming officials for not supporting the resolution," L Ganean, BJP National Executive member, said.

The government’s decision also proved that some pro-Tamil features in the Congress manifesto was merely an 'eyewash', he alleged.

However, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy hailed the Indian government’s decision, saying “I congratulate Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for ordering the Indian delegation in UNHRC not to support the dangerous US Resolution seeking an international probe into the so-called human rights violations during 2009 anti-LTTE war by Sri Lanka.”