Anandasangaree hits out at TNA

Thursday, 1 January 2015 00:09 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Secretary General of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) V. Anandasangaree has hit out at the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for publicly calling on the Tamils to vote for common Opposition presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena. Anandasangaree said that the public announcement by the TNA could have consequences and in his opinion the TNA should have allowed the Tamils to make their own choice.

“The TNA took three weeks from the day of nomination to announce the name of the candidate of their choice. The excuse they gave was that they were waiting for the arrival of R. Sampanthan from India where he had gone for a medical checkup, for which three weeks are not required. He could have been either summoned or his views obtained over the phone. The claim that they had wide discussions with members of other organisations and important personalities is far from the truth. But from the day of nomination till now a number of members of the alliance parties had directly or indirectly announced their decisions and over 500,000 voters have already cast their votes. There should be a limit to misleading the innocent people,” he said. Anandasangaree said that the TNA’s announcement to support the New Democratic Front candidate would prove counterproductive and also detrimental for the cause. He noted that there are several thousands of Muslims, Tamils and Sinhalese who had undergone untold hardships and also lost very many kith and kin as a result of the war. “This is why I warned the TNA much earlier to join cautiously without alerting these people and leave it to them to decide as to who they should vote. My suggestion will look reasonable for some and ridiculous to others. Left alone the whole episode will appear to be a dream, if alerted the consequences will be terrible,” he said. Anandasangaree also said it is his strong view that TNA Leader R. Sambanthan and TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran alone cannot solve a problem without the assistance of the leaders of the other parties to the alliance. (Colombo Gazette)