'Anti-national': Subramanian Swamy writes to President Kovind opposing MK Stalin's plea to release 7 convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case

Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday wrote a letter to President Ram Nath Kovind and has oppossed Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin's plea to release seven convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

Stalin, in his letter to the President, had asked to remit the life sentence of seven convicts. "These seven persons have already suffered untold hardship and agony in the past three decades and have paid a heavy price. There has already been an inordinate delay in the consideration of their pleas for remission. In the present circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, courts are also recognising the need to decongest prisons," the Tamil Nadu CM said. "The majority of the political parties in Tamil Nadu have been requesting for the remission of the remainder of their sentence and for immediate release of all the seven convicts as they have been incarcerated for about three decades. It is also the will of the people of Tamil Nadu," he added.

Terming Stalin's argument as "ridiculous", Swamy wrote, "Does the Chief Minister mean to suggest that the life of a former Prime Minister of this nation, and who may have been once again on the verge of becoming Prime Minister, is to measure against a certain quantum of years of imprisonment undergone of these convicts, who are all foreign terrorists except one Indian?"

Swamy said India lost a popular national leader due to the actions of these convicts. He asked, "Does Stalin mean to suggest to you (President Kovind) that life of such a young national leader in the prime of his political life, and one who had been Prime Minister of India, is worthy only a certain quantum of years of sentence undergone by these foreign terrorists?"

The BJP leader further termed Stalin's plea as "anti-national" and "strongly recommended" President Kovind to "pass appropriate orders to ensure that the seven convicts on remitted life sentence, continue to serve their sentence for life as was intended when they got a remission from the death sentence because later after two years of no action by successive Union Governments to carry out the hanging, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held delay of twenty years was inhuman, and commuted the death sentence of the remaining convicts to imprisonment for life."

"I would also suggest that you may consider that henceforth opine that no further applications or recommendations of Government whether at Centre or State level, be allowed for review in this matter and that it be closed once and for all," said Swami. "Let our nation's enemies, notably terrorists, be therefore warned that patriotic Indian Governments believe in zero tolerance for terrorists," he added.