3:25 AM

Tamil Democratic Alliance backs Pillaiyan for CM

The chances of TMVP chief Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan became stronger with the unqualified support extended to him by the lone council member belonging to the Tamil National Democratic Alliance (TNDA) in addition to the six Tamil members elected on UPFA ticket.
Rasaiyah Thurairatnam, National Organiser of the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (Vartharaja Group) who won a seat in the East Provincial Council on the TNDA list insisted that the Chief Minister for the East has to be a Tamil and no one else. In an exclusive interview with News-Lanka, he declared that he would support a Tamil becoming the Chief Minister of the East Provincial Council.

Rasaiyah Thurairatnam, the national organiser of the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (Vartharaja Group) is one of the few alternative voices in the Tamil community. In 2000, he, with Varatharaja Perumal led a group of party activists to set up EPRLF (Varatharaja Group) when a group led by Suresh Premachandran decided to join the LTTE proxy Tamil National Alliance.

Thurairatnam said that the 13th Amendment brought under the Indo-Lanka Peace accord offered solutions to many a grievance of the Tamil people. “We, having agreed with the Provincial Council system, entered the main- stream of politics to find a peaceful solution to the issues confronting the Tamils of Sri Lanka in particular and the country in general. Therefore the recent Provincial Council election was an attempt to find a solution to the Tamil separatist issues and nothing else,” he said. “Hence the three political parties namely EPRLF, TULF, and PLOTE decided to participate in the Provincial Council Election”.

He pointed out that 74% of the population in the Batticaloa district s is Tamil and of the balance 24 % are Muslims. “The most ridiculous things in this election are that because of Tamil political parties joining hands with the chauvinist political parties and working openly with the intention to subterfuge. However 6 Tamil members to represent the Tamils (break down – 3 Tamil members from UPFA, 2 Tamil members from UNP and 1 from EPRLF) were elected. The Muslims who represents only 24% of the population got 5 seats (3 Muslims from UPFA and 3 from UNP). This is planned strategy to destroy our Tamil region in the East,” he said.
“What those who have joined hands with the Chauvinists have done was that they have seen to end of Tamils’ representation according to the proportion of Tamil population in the area. However, beyond all these things the Provincial Council is meant to bring about the devolution of powers to the Tamils,” Thurairatnam said.

0 comments: