Subramanian Swamy opposes Stalin's plea for release of Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts

BJP MP Subramanian Swamy wrote to President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday opposing Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin's plea seeking the release of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts. In his letter, Swamy questioned whether Stalin was of the opinion that the life of a former PM was only worth a certain number of years of imprisonment undergone by the convicts. Citing various judgments of the Supreme Court, he stressed that a life sentence implies imprisonment for life and cannot be remitted for this "anti-national assassination".

He recalled that the late PM had sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka to save the Tamils of the neighbouring country from "genocide".  Swamy added, "Post this (India-Sri Lanka) treaty, the internationally notified terrorist, i.e, the LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran (who claimed to be a Marxist), thus had to face the democratically elected Tamil leaders of repute, and suffer isolation and irrelevance, thus determined and conspired for Shri Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, after the elections held in Tamil areas of Jaffna and Batticaloa in the north east, elected a Tamil Chief Minister (Sri Vardarajan Perumal). LTTE just became a renegade in the eyes of the world and Tamils everywhere in particular". 

The ex-Union Minister also drew attention to the report of the Justice Varma Commission which examined the security aspects of the arrangements for Gandhi's public meeting in Sriperumbudur. Lamenting that successive governments have ignored the recommendations of this panel, he claimed that it held the key to decide whether a particular political party "deliberately" sabotaged the full security arrangements made by the state government. Moreover, Swamy expressed shock at Congress president Sonia Gandhi for seeking clemency for the conspirators of her husband's assassination. 

Here is Swamy's letter to President Kovind: 

Stalin appeals to President

On May 21, 1991, former PM Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber when he was towards the dais for addressing an election rally for the Lok Sabha polls. Convicted in the case, A G Perarivalan, Nalini, her husband Murugan, T. Suthendraraja, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, and P Ravichandran are serving a life term. Highlighting that they have been undergoing the "agony" of imprisonment for over three decades, MK Stalin added that the erstwhile TN government had recommended to the Governor for the remission of their life sentence on September 9, 2018.

However, he pointed out that the Governor decided that the President is the competent authority to decide on the remission of these 7 persons. Referring to the SC's recent verdict on decongesting prisons amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he stated that there had already been an inordinate delay in the consideration of their remission pleas. Therefore, he requested President Kovind to accept the 2018 recommendation of the TN government and direct the immediate release of the convicts.