Sri Lanka PM meets Congress high command

New Delhi: Visiting Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday, ahead of talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma was also part of the Congress delegation that met the Sri Lankan PM.

Mr Wickremesinghe will also meet external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday.

The entire gamut of Indo-Sri Lankan ties is expected to be discussed at the meeting between the Sri Lankan PM and PM Modi on Saturday in the backdrop of growing Chinese economic influence in the island nation. China has already made huge investments in projects in India’s southern maritime neighbour.

The visit is taking place right after Sri Lanka earlier this week denied media reports from Colo-mbo that its President Maithripala Sirisena had accused an Indian intelligence agency of bei-ng involved in a plot to assassinate him.

Speculation is rife in Sri Lanka of a turf war between its President Sirisena and its Prime Minister Wickremesing-he. Mr Sirisena had also called up Mr Modi to personally deny the reports. Mr Sirisena told Mr Modi that the “mischievous and mala fide reports were utterly baseless and false, and seemed intended to create misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours”.

It may be recalled that last year, India and Sri Lanka had welcomed “signing of the Memo-randum of Underst-anding for ‘Cooperation in Economic Projects’, which outlined the agenda for bilateral economic cooperation in the foreseeable future”. The proposed projects under this included “a regasified Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) fired 500 MW capacity LNG Power Plant, an LNG Term-inal /Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) in Colombo/Kera-walapitiya, a 50 MW Solar Power Plant in Sampur, an Upper Tank Farm in Trincomalee and a Container Terminal in Colombo Port” that “will be jointly developed by India and Sri Lanka”.

A “port, petroleum refinery and other industries in Trincomalee (in eastern Sri Lanka)” are also proposed, for which “a Joint Working Group will be set up to further discuss and flesh out details”, the MEA had said in April last year.

Other proposed projects had included “industrial Zones/Special Economic Zones in identified locations in Sri Lanka, important road segments Mannar-Jaffna, Mannar-Trincomalee and Dambulla-Trincomale Expressway under Indian investments, railway sector development in Sri Lanka including new projects for track upgradation and purchase of rolling stock, and Agricultural sector and livestock development in Sri Lanka”.

In the wake of media reports for the past several months that India may be interested in operating Sri Lanka’s loss-making Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport in Hambantota, it remains to be seen if this figures in talks between the two leaders. The US$ 210 million facility, 241km south-east of Sri Lanka’s capital city, Colombo, has been dubbed the “world’s emptiest airport” due to a lack of flights. Reports have pointed out that in the Hambantota area, China has built a seaport and is in discussions to build an investment zone and a refinery. The town of Hambantota sits near one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and is an important part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), aimed at building trade and transport links across Asia and beyond to Europe. According to reports, China runs the seaport with a 99-year lease.