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| Sunday, 28 December 2003 |
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Politics |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Plantation sector rejects UPF call Major plantations trade unions-cum-political parties have rejected calls by the Up-Country People's Front (UPF) leader and Minister Periyasamy Chandrasekaran, to contest future parliamentary elections in alliance with Tamil parties of the North-East. Leaders of these parties denounced it as 'communal politics detrimental to the interests of the plantation community' and said that as the problems and political aspirations of the North-East people were entirely different from that of the plantation people, such an alliance was 'unrealistic'. Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) stalwart and Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Muthu Sivalingam, said that although their founder leader, Late Soumiyamurthy Thondaman, was joint president of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) at one point, he had never wanted to contest on their symbol on principle. The people of the North-East and the plantations can express mutual support to their causes, but they cannot contest elections under one symbol, he said. Lanka National Estate Workers' Union (LJEWU) General Secretary and MP for Badulla, S. Veluatham, said that plantation people who live amidst the majority community cannot form such a political alliance, which will have long term political repercussions. Ceylon Workers' Alliance (CWA) leader former MP T. V. Chennan said that such an alliance is not practical. Meanwhile, General Secretary of the Joint Plantation Trade Union Centre (JPTUC), O. A. Ramiah, who is also politburo member of the Ceylon Communist Party commented that communal politics has been the major cause for the current ethnic conflicts and the plantation people should not be lured into it. -PK |
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