Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may meet today a group of Tamil MPs from Sri Lanka sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers, marking a subtle but notable shift in India's policy.

If the meeting does take place, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MPs will get to convey their assessment of the situation in Sri Lanka to Manmohan Singh and National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan.

TNA considers the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is outlawed in India, as the official representative of the Sri Lankan Tamil community. TNA has 22 MPs and is the largest Tamil bloc in Sri Lanka's 225-seat parliament.

TNA MP Mavai Senathirajah told IANS from Chennai that he and his colleagues R. Sambandan and M.K. Shivaji Lingam were already in India and expected Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam soon, but added that they have no knowledge if a meeting they have been seeking with the Indian prime minister for months is about to materialize.

So, for now, he declined to say what the MPs planned to tell Manmohan Singh. But he did add that Sri Lankan Tamils expected help and assistance from India for the Tamils in the violence-torn island nation.

The Friday meeting, if it takes place, will be the first between the Indian government leadership and TNA, which was formed in 2001 and is widely seen as a close ally of the Tamil Tigers.

Indian diplomats in Sri Lanka have met TNA MPs. But the Indian government has always drawn a line between the LTTE nominees in TNA and others who in the past have belonged to parties or groups earlier opposed to the LTTE.

P. Nedumaran, one of the most vocal supporters of the LTTE in India, told IANS, also from Chennai, that any Indian decision to meet TNA MPs would be "a very good move" and "a milestone" in New Delhi's troubled ties vis-à-vis the island's tumultuous history.

"After Rajiv Gandhi, no Indian prime minister has met anyone representing the Tamil side (of Sri Lanka)," he said, speaking with the LTTE in mind. "No major change will be happening immediately because of this meeting. But it is a good beginning."

He said one reason Manmohan Singh might have agreed to meet TNA is because New Delhi's virtual boycott of the pro-LTTE alliance had become a sore point in Tamil Nadu, which is separated from Sri Lanka by a narrow strip of sea.

"The Sri Lankan president comes to Delhi when he wants. Their foreign minister also keeps coming to Delhi. Even Ranil (Wickremesinghe) and Chandrika (Kumaratunga) used to fly to Delhi frequently. Norway also briefs India about Sri Lanka. But India has not met TNA MPs though they are the largest Tamil party in Sri Lanka. Is this fair?

"In fact even not meeting LTTE is not fair," he added. "Doesn't our government meet banned groups from Nagaland, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir? OK, even if you don't meet LTTE, where is the justness in avoiding an elected body like TNA?"

The broad Indian assessment is that any meeting with TNA will in no way change New Delhi's official treatment of the LTTE. The LTTE is outlawed in India and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is wanted for the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

One Indian official told IANS that the expected the TNA-Manmohan Singh meeting will seek to take away the complaint in Tamil Nadu that New Delhi was being unfair by not giving a high-level hearing to the Tamil viewpoint, albeit the pro-LTTE one.

At the same time, India remains seriously concerned about the suffering of ordinary Tamils in Sri Lanka because of the high levels of violence and might convey to the TNA MPs that the LTTE must seriously think of returning to peace talks with Colombo.

Although Sri Lanka is expected to understand why India is meeting the pro-LTTE TNA, some might read it as New Delhi's response to the deepening links between Colombo and Islamabad.