Following a collective agreement amongst Tamil political parties, leader of the Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootan(TMTK) CV Wigneswaran has accused Tamil lawmaker MA Sumanthiran of being the sole opponent of fielding a common Tamil canidate at the upcoming presidential election, which will be held on 21st September.
Following a collective agreement amongst Tamil political parties, leader of the Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootan(TMTK) CV Wigneswaran has accused Tamil lawmaker MA Sumanthiran of being the sole opponent of fielding a common Tamil canidate at the upcoming presidential election, which will be held on 21st September.
He told journalists in Jaffna that it is only Sumanthiran who is "making a big noise against the Tamil general candidate". Last month, Sumanthiran slammed the proposal for a common candidate claiming that it was "not beneficial and can be harmful, especially for the Tamil community". Wigneswaran has rebuked the idea stating that, "the general candidate is to support the Tamil people and their aspirations, not Ranil or Sajith. It is completely wrong to say that a common candidate is to support Ranil".
Commenting on opposition to the common candidate, Wigneswaran stated, "they are saying that they will somehow stop the appointment of a common candidate and they are not afraid to be called out as traitors". He went on to say that the opposition to the candidate might be stemming from fear among the Sinhalese candidates.
Wigneswaran also stressed that there was no pressure from Indian diplomats to drop the idea of a common candidate.
"I don't think there was any pressure from the Indian counterpart. They rarely talk about such things with me. They will talk about culture and religion. It is rare to talk about this matter."
The agreement to field a common Tamil candidate was agreed to last month and is an overt rejection of Sinhala candidates which Tamil leaders note will not further the aspirations of the Eelam Tamils.
Read more here: Tamil political parties and civil society activists sign agreement to field common presidential candidate
The signatories include Member of Parliament and leader of the Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootan (TMTK) CV Wigneswaran, Member of Parliament and leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) Selvam Adaikkalanathan, former parliamentarian and Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front leader (EPRLF) Suresh Premachandran, Member of Parliament and leader of the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) Dharmalingam Siddharthan, former Member of the North Provincial Assembly P. Aingaranesan, former parliamentarian and Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) member N Sri Kantha, leader of the Crusaders for Democratic Party C. Vendan, head of the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Jaffna K T Ganesalingam, Jaffna-based political analyst and senior lawyer S A Jothilingam, political commentator Yathindra and political analyst Nilanthan.
