The leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and parliamentarian Sivagnanam Shritharan met the Bharatiya Janata Party's Tamil Nadu state president, Nainar Nagenthran, in India on Friday, during a three-day visit in which discussions centred on the political and livelihood challenges facing Tamils in the North-East of Sri Lanka.
According to a statement issued by Shritharan, the talks ranged across a number of contemporary issues confronting the Tamil people in their homeland, among them the demolition of ancestral Tamil Hindu temples and the construction of Buddhist viharas in their place, the skeletal remains being exhumed at the Chemmani mass grave, and efforts to secure justice for the genocide committed against the Tamil people.
The statement said the two sides had also discussed a lasting settlement to the Tamil national question.
"There was an extensive exchange of views between both sides on a permanent political solution for the Eelam Tamils and the political aspirations of the Tamil people."
The two had agreed to continue such meetings and consultations in future, the statement added, and Shritharan was hosted for lunch during the visit.
Also present was the veteran Tamil political figure K. S. Radhakrishnan, described in the statement as having more than fifty years of experience in Tamil political affairs, along with the BJP's Tamil Nadu state secretary and several senior party representatives.
Nagenthran, a former Tamil Nadu state minister, has headed the BJP's Tamil Nadu unit since April 2025 and is leading the party's bid to unseat the governing DMK in the state.