TMVP leader to take oaths as MP

Colombo: TMVP Leader Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, popularly known as Karuna Amman, will take oaths before Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara as a Member of Parliament today from the UPFA National List.

He fills the vacancy created by the resignation of Wasantha Samarasinghe, who contested the recent provincial council election. Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan was born in Kiran, a village in the Batticaloa district in 1966. He joined the LTTE in 1983 and became a top commander.

He participated in several rounds of peace talks as a member of the LTTE delegation after the Ceasefire Agreement was signed in 2002.

In March 2004, he broke away from the mainstream LTTE along with thousands of cadres loyal to him after alleging that the LTTE leadership was favouring Northern cadres and

people and ignoring the interests of the Easterners who had made huge sacrifices for the organisation. He has alleged that Prabhakaran intentionally dragged out peace talks so that the LTTE could use the cessation in hostilities to re-arm and re-group.

He claimed that the LTTE has lost 70 per cent of its fighting capacity after his group separated from the LTTE.

He formed a political party named the TMVP which contested local government and provincial councils polls in the East. The TMVP’s deputy leader Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan is now the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province.