‘TNA’s Politics of Opportunism’ will be defeated in the East - Pillaiyan

The Tamil National Alliance adopts “politics of opportunism” and they are bent on ruining the Tamils of the Eastern Province with their Jaffna hegemonic politics. However the Tamils in the East are not prepared to be subjugated anymore by the TNA Jaffna leaders and they will be taught a bitter lesson this time in the Provincial Council Election, said Sivanesathurai Chanthirakanthan alias Pillaiyan, the former Chief Minister of the Eastern Provincial Council.

He was speaking to Asian Tribune and he said in the 2008 Provincial Council Election TNA said that they are not contesting in the Eastern Provincial Council, which has been truncated from the North-East Provincial Council. They said if the TNA contest in the Eastern Provincial Council, it would amounts to betraying the cause of Tamil Nationalism.

Pillaiyan posed a question, how come they are coming forward to contest this time in the Eastern Provincial Council. Are they saying this time the contest will not amounts to betraying the cause of the Tamil Nationalism?

He said that it is very hard to understand the politics of opportunism unleashed by the TNA trio – Sampanthan –Sumanthiran and Mavai Senathirajah.

When speaking to Asian Tribune the former Chief minister of the outgoing Provincial Council said that within the TNA it has come to open that the five party alliance is not united and there are allegation that Ilankai Tamil Aradsu Kadchi has back stabbed the other coalition partners in the TNA. It is learnt soon the alliance will breakaway.

He said that Tamils of the East are united to defeat the TNA in the East.

When asked what will be his work priorities when he is returned for the second term as the Chief Minister for the Eastern Provincial Council, Sivanesathurai Chanthirakanthan alias Pillaiyan said in his first term as the Chief Minister he had seen that the people in the province are given hope and confidence and has taken measures to improve their livelihood and develop economy.

He went on to say, We have brought about friendly relationship in the midst of the three ethnic communities in the province and have given hope that we all can work together to build our country.

We have taken adequate measure for the infrastructure development and also improved the paddy cultivation. In our province the milk production, agriculture production and the fish production have improved greatly. To an extent the people’s standard of living also has improved. We have already taken steps to improve all types of roads and still we have to improve the rural roads and we have to do it in my second term.

He said that according to our survey we need nearly 43,000 new houses to those presently living in huts and in tin roofed houses. I am planning to see that there are no no thatched huts in our province by 2016.

When I took over the Chief Ministership in 2008 Eastern Province remained a backward region in education, as during those days more than 50 percent of the Province was under the iron grip of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the education of our children were simply neglected, Pillaiyan said.

He further said, therefore we have decided to give top most priority for our children’s education. When I became the Chief Minister , the O level and A Level results in our province were very bad. We were in the last position- No 9 in the country.

Now we have improved a lot and at the last O level examination Eastern Province was placed 5th in the country and we have seen a marked improvement in the A Level results also.

In my next tenure we will make arrangements to give new buildings to schools, provide science lab facilities to almost all the Maha Vidyalayams and Maddhya Mahavidyalams, we will introduce computer education to our school children and provide them with almost modern educational facilities and connectivity.

We are planning introduce income yielding cottage industries and improve the standard of life of our families in the East. There are more than 40,000 widows in our province and out of that total, there are about 22,000 young widows. He said he has termed ‘young’ those widows between the ages of 28 to 40 years old. He said during his next term he will provide income generating vocations and other facilities to these widows to enable them to meet their requirements and improve their life standard.

When asked, he said that there was 20 UPFA Councilors out of 37 in the outgoing provincial Council. In the Opposition there was 1 JVP, 1 EPLRF and 15 UNP.

This time we will win 25 to 27 council seats. On behalf of the TMVP, 6 candidates are contesting in the Batticaloa district another 3 in Trincomalee and 3 in the Ampara district. We all are contesting in the UPFA ticket, he said.

He said this time UNP might win 1 seat in the Amapara district. We havent heard anything about JVP.

He said he will campaign jointly with the Muslims and Sinhalese and see UPFA win hats off in the Province. He said our victory is assured.

- Asian Tribune –