Tamil parties to hand over nominations on Monday:

Ex-Tigers to go solo

by P. Krishnaswamy

The Tamil political group of LTTE ex-combatants led by its convener, veteran journalist Nadesapillai Vidhyatharan, is now going solo as an independent group, consequent to the TNA leadership having rejected the request to accommodate them.

The group is contesting only in the Jaffna electoral district because fears were expressed that national level Tamils' representation would be disrupted if the LTTE ex-combatants contested in the other Tamil-predominant Electoral Districts', Vidhyatharan told the Sunday Observer.

The All Ceylon Tamil Maha Sabha (ACTMS) led by Dr. Wigneswaran with Thambiah Gopalakrishnan as its General Secretary told the Sunday Observer they would be filing nominations tomorrow (Monday) to the five electoral districts in the North and East and nine districts - Colombo, Gampaha, Matale, Puttalam, Ratnapura, Kegalle, Galle, Polonnaruwa and Kalutara - outside the North and East.

They are not fielding candidates to the Nuwara Eliya, Badulla and Kandy Districts because other Tamil parties are contesting in these three Districts and therefore would not want the Tamil votes scattered.

The EDP will hand over its nominations tomorrow (Monday) to contest the Jaffna, Vanni, Nuwara Eliya and Digamadulla, party leader R. Prabaharan told the Sunday Observer.

They are not fielding candidates in the Trincomalee electoral district taking into consideration the fact that only one Tamil candidate in each District stands the chance of being elected and therefore the EDP does not want to scatter Tamil votes.