‘Solution should be acceptable to majority community’
:
Sumanthiran’s statement creates furore in TNA
by P. Krishnaswamy
In what seems as a rift within the ranks of the TNA parliamentary
group on the problems of people in the North TNA MP for the Jaffna
district M.A. Sumanthiran told a recent meeting of party supporters in
London that their proposal on a political solution has to be acceptable
to the majority community.
This statement having apparently irked the party hierarchy, TNA MP
for the Batticaloa district P. Ariyanethran in a counter statement said
that it was Sumanthiran’s personal view and not that of the party.
After the July 23 LG polls, at the London meeting attended by the
Tamil diaspora community, parliamentarian Sumanthiran had said that any
proposal from the Tamils by way of a solution to the problems of people
in the North should be acceptable to the majority community as well and,
therefore, the Tamils’ approach on the matter should be milder.
He also said that much headway had been made in their ninth round of
talks with the Government on evolving a solution.
Following the LG polls in which the North-East Tamils had given a
clear mandate to the TNA, the Government has now focused more attention
on evolving a solution, he said.
The meeting was held under the auspices of the London branch of the
TNA.
While senior members of all political parties representing the
Tamil-speaking people of the North and the East, including the Eelam
People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), the People’s Liberation Organisation
of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), the All Ceylon People’s Congress (ACPC), the
National Congress and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), welcomed the
stance of parliamentarian Sumanthiran, sources close to the TNA told the
Sunday Observer that the statement is now the topic of heated
discussions within party circles.
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