Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA), one of Sri Lanka’s key Tamil political coalition pledged support to opposition leader Sajith Premadasa in the upcoming September 21 presidential poll after both parties agreed on a set of conditions of memorandum of understanding (MOU), TPA officials said.
The TPA also wants to recognise them as Sri Lankans and remove the ‘Indian Origin’ label from up country Tamils.
TPA, which has never contested alone in any election up to now, has six legislators in the 225-member parliament after contesting under Premadasa-led center-right Samagi Jana Balawegaya in the 2020 general election. Since then, TPA has been within the opposition led by Premadasa.
Mano Ganeshan, the leader of TPA said the party decided unanimously “to extend or reaffirm” support to Premadasa.
“The MOU does not demand the Sun and Moon. All that we need is we want to be recognized as more and more Sri Lankans,” Ganeshan told reporters at a media briefing in Colombo.
“We want to come into more and more Sri Lankanism. We are of recent Indian origins. We want to move away from that fact. We want to be more and more Sri Lankans.”
“There is no Indian expansionism,” when asked why the TPA wanted to do away with the ‘Indian Origin’ label.
“I don’t want to carry that label. We are Lankans. All Sri Lankans are some way Indian origin in history. We are the recent Indian origin and I want to remove that. It is a progressive move. We want to live with Sinhalese, Tamils in North and East and Muslims as Sri Lankans.”
Sri Lanka has nearly 1.5 million Indian origin Tamils across the country, famous as plantation workers. Their living conditions, poor wages and facilities provided by successive governments have been heavily criticised by rights groups.
The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), the main rival of TPA which is likely to back President Ranil Wickremesinghe, has sought Indian assistance to help the upcountry Tamil community including housing and education. India has pledged assistance for housing and teacher training.
“NOT UNCONDITIONAL”
TPA officials said their community is facing issues in housing, health, education, and land ownership. These along with the daily wage of plantation workers are usually included in election promises by main political parties during every presidential and parliamentary election.
Ganeshan said the support to Premadasa is “not unconditional”.
“Nobody will give unconditional support to anybody. There is real politics. Our conditions are bringing enhancement or strengthening Sri Lankanism in this country. That is a progressive stance,” he said.
“All our conditions are mutually agreed and appreciated.”
However, he did not elaborate on the conditions agreed with Premadasa in return for the party’s support to him.
“We expect to bring a system change in the plantations,” Ganeshan said.
“We want to shift the daily wage earning plantation workers to small holders. They should become stakeholders of the plantations instead of labours.”
“We have a legal citizenship issue right now. At least half of us in the plantation are not fully fledged citizens of Sri Lanka. As TPA leader, I must say this sadly.”
“We are confident that SajithPremadasa’s government would do denied-justice to our community which TPA represents.”
The TPA comprises three political parties: Upcountry People’s Front, National Union of Workers, and Democratic People Front.
