Lankan leaders at Kumbh Mela on Vaddukoddai Resolution anniversary

President Maithripala Sirisena and Leader of the Opposition R. Sampanthan participated in a public event yesterday, coincidentally the 40th anniversary of the Vaddukoddai resolution, through which the northern Tamil leadership called for a separate Tamil homeland in the North and Eastern parts of the island.

The two leaders attended Kumbh Mela, a mass Hindu pilgrimage that traditionally culminates in devotees bathing in a sacred river, in the Indian city of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh.

Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan was incidentally one of the political leaders who supported the separatist call four decades ago, as a young leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) a key proponent of Tamil Eelam. The controversial resolution was adopted on May 14, 1976 in Pannakam close to Vaddukoddai by the TULF under the leadership of S. J. V. Chelvanayakam.

Sampanthan was quoted in the Hindu having said that, “We stopped talking about the content of the resolution ever since the India-Sri Lanka Agreement was signed in 1987 and the 13th Constitutional Amendment which envisaged the establishment of elected provincial councils, was adopted. We have moved away from that position.”