JHU MP questions Ranil on Plantations land issue
 

by L.B. Wijayasiri in Kandy

Jathika Hela Urumaya Kandy District MP Ven. Udawatte Nanda Thera wants UNP Presidential Candidate Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to tell the country as to how he was going to make use of any lands in the plantation areas for public purposes to benefit the nation in view of CWC Leader Arumugam Thondaman's Condition none of those lands should be utilised for any purpose without their approval.

CWC leader Thondaman had stated that the CWC decided to support Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe because the latter accepted the conditions laid down by the CWC. One of the major conditions by the CWC was that plantation lands should not be taken over by the government for alienation or any other purposes without the approval of the CWC.

The UNP candidate should tell the country whether he had accepted these conditions and it so how was he going to solve landless problem of the kandy peasants whose most acute problem was landlessness.

The late Lands Minister Hector Kobbekaduwa introduced Land Reform laws in 1973 with the purpose of sowing that problem.

However, once the UNP government came into power in 1977, it bungled that Act and provided facilities to capitalist land owners. The present UNP leader was a member of that government and so was Thondaman's grand father S. Thondaman.

It was very unfortunate that the UNP leader was going to cause a grave injustice to the Kandyan peasantry in particular and to the entire country in general by agreeing to anti national conditions of this nature.