Allocation of fifteen seats to North, violation of democratic rights - JHU

Ranil Wijayapala and Uditha Kumarasinghe

KOTTE: Parliament group leader of the Jathika Hela Urumaya yesterday urged the Government to ensure a fair allocation of number of Parliament seats to each province as the allocation of 15 members to the North was unfair in accordance with the exact number of people living there.

Ven. Rathana Thera made this request after forwarding a question to Prime Minister and Deputy Defence Minister in Parliament yesterday.

The Thera pointed out that though the Northern Province should be given only 10 seats according to the exact number of people living there according to the census conducted by security forces and Divisional Secretariats.

"The allocation of 15 seats to the North is a violation of the democratic rights of the people living in other parts of the country," the Thera said.

The Thera said according to census conducted by Security Forces the number of eligible voters does not exceed 300,000 in the Jaffna district. The number of eligible voters in the Wanni does not exceed 150,000. Accordingly, the entire Northern Province should be allocated only six seats according to its population.

As, four seats are allocated to each province according to the constitution, a total of 10 seats should be given to the entire Northern Province, the Thera pointed out.

"But today 15 seats have been given to the North. Parliament does not represent equitable public representation," the Thera added.

The Tamil National Alliance has been given one seat for each 28,000 votes they have obtained while the Jathika Hela Urumaya which represents peaceful Sinhala people has been given only one seat for each 62,000 votes.

"We request the Prime Minister to rectify this unfair allocation of MPs by providing correct statistics to the Elections Department as it is now in the process of preparing new electoral lists," the Thera said.

He said similar type of census should also be conducted in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts to remove unqualified voters from the electoral lists.