• Slams N-E parties pushing to achieve underhand agendas as opposed to gaining what the Govt. is willing to grant 

Following the all-party conference – called by President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday (26) to reach a final decision on the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution – concluding without a final consensus, Thamil Makkal Thesiya Kuttani (TMTK) Leader and Jaffna District Opposition Parliamentarian C.V. Wigneswaran stated that many parties that attended the conference, including the Opposition’s Tamil National Alliance (TNA), were not interested in the implementation of the 13th Amendment.

Speaking to The Daily Morning yesterday (27), Wigneswaran claimed that rather than trying to win what the Government is ready to grant, most parties, especially parties from the North and the East, are trying to achieve underhanded purposes under the guise of these discussions.

He also highlighted that he had proposed the recruitment of more youths from the Northern and Eastern Provinces to the police service and the expansion of community policing in the said areas if the 13th Amendment cannot be implemented with police powers, which was, however, not endorsed by many, including the TNA.

He said that the TNA proposed that the Provincial Council (PC) Elections, which have been postponed for years, be held first and a federal Constitution be granted.

Speaking further on the devolvement of police powers to the provinces and the recruitment of youths from the North and the East to the Police Department, he said that if the Government can do so, the alienation existing between the youth and the Police in those areas can be eliminated. “I presented the example of the Pondicherry Police where policemen are not given guns but only batons and handcuffs. They do everything like traffic control and solving civil matters without guns. Even here, the Excise Department manages everything without guns. If we can do that, the Police can get the support of these youth who have been alienated from the Police due to various reasons, such as the language barrier, to restore law and order in the North and the East,” he said.

However, speaking to the media after the conference, State Minister Dr. Suren Raghavan claimed that the Tamil political parties’ leaders did not have a common consensus about what they truly wanted. According to him, TNA MP President’s Counsel M.A. Sumanthiran, Wigneswaran, and other Tamil MPs were of conflicting opinions about the 13th Amendment, the Local Government Elections, and the devolution of power to the Tamil community.

President Wickremesinghe called for collective discussions among all parties to decide on granting police powers to the PCs as outlined in the 13th Amendment. Furthermore, President Wickremesinghe proposed arrangements that would allow Councillors of the PCs to concurrently hold positions and be appointed as MPs, while MPs could also serve as Provincial Councillors.

Several attempts made by The Daily Morning to contact the TNA proved futile.