The adamancy of Sampanthan would soon lead to a vertical split of the TNA

The Common Left Presidential Candidate Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne and the Independent Tamil Presidential Candidate M.K. Sivajilingam – both will be in the Jaffna district from today onwards up to the 4th of this month, participating in a joint election campaign.

Speaking to Asian Tribune, Sivajilingham said that both of them will be jointly appealing to the voters in the Jaffna electoral district, not to vote for Sarath Fonseka and President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He said that this will be their main plank of the campaign and it is left to the voters to decide to vote for one of them on the polling day.

The Tamil independent presidential candidate further said that he will be campaigning in Vavuniya and Mannar on 6th of January, also jointly with Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne.

He further said that, when he met R.Sampanthan, the parliamentary group leader of the TNA , his deputy Mavai Senathirajah and Kathirgamathamby Retnasingham MP along with Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam MP and Selvam Adaikalanathan MP on Thursday, he has told them that he was prepared to reconsider his candidature, in case TNA resolves not to support either of the two main presidential candidates – President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka, in the forthcoming presidential election.

Sampanthan rejected my last minute appeal to save a vertical split of the TNA.

Sivajilingham said that Sampanthan was adamant and as he has already decided to support Sarath Fonseka, he rejected my last minute appeal to save a vertical split of the TNA.

At the meeting held on Thursday, Sivajilingham said Sampanthan informed that he has received an invitation from President Mahinda Rajapaksa for a meeting and invited anyone of us to join him if interested.

As I was not interested, I did not join him in the meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

He said that he learnt that Samapanthan went along with Mavai Senathirajah to meet the Sri Lanka President.

He said that the outcome of the meeting was 'inconsequential' as Sampanthan has already decided to support Sarath Fonseka.

The said deportation of mine, who is a member of parliament representing the Jaffna electoral district and a candidate in the forthcoming presidential election is in fact nothing but an act of preplanned humiliation perpetuated on the Sri Lankan Tamil community.

In the meantime Sivajilingham said that already he has registered his protest with the Indian High Commission in Colombo for his deportation from India last Saturday, citing it as an act of humiliation perpetrated on the Sri Lankan Tamil community.

Sivajilingam said that he handed over his protest letter to the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, Asok K. Kantha on Wednesday. He said that he was deported in an unacceptable manner by the Indian immigration authorities, when he sought to enter India at the Chennai airport.

He added that in his letter that he was heading towards India from London to attend a Tamil conference to be held in Tanjore, Tamil Nadu. He found faults with his colleagues in the TNA saying that they had conveyed the information to the Indian authorities on his anti-Indian stand.

Given below the full text of the letter addressed to the Indian High Commissioner Ashok K.Kantha with the subject matter of “Deportation from India.”

“ I am compel to bring to your attention the fact of my deportation from the Chennai Airport on the early morning of the 26th December 2009, when I landed there from London by flight No EK 542.

Even my request to be sent to Colombo instead London was turned down by the team of immigration officials, whom I have sufficient reasons to believe that they have been assembled in advance to receive me at the Chennai airport to execute my deportation. Within half an hour of my arrival, I was forced to fly back to London via Dubai in the flight No EK 543.

At the Dubai airport, while in transit, the immigration officials were kind enough to permit to fly Colombo on my paying for the journey from Chennai to Dubai and from there to Colombo. My travelling to Chennai from London was to attend the World Tamil Conference that was held in Tanjore, in Tamil Nadu on 26th and 27th of this month.

The said deportation of mine, who is a member of parliament representing the Jaffna electoral district and a candidate in the forthcoming presidential election is in fact nothing but an act of preplanned humiliation perpetuated on the Sri Lankan Tamil community.

I request that this act of gross injustice and blatant discrimination be brought to the attention to the Prime Minister and the Minister of External Affairs of the Government of India,” writes Sivajilingham.

- Asian Tribune -