Another 3000 Easterners join SLFP:

Muralitharan sworn in as Minister

Rohan MATHES

TMVP leader and Parliamentarian Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan with another 3000 followers from the Eastern Province joined the SLFP to strengthen the hands of President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees yesterday.

Following his entry into the party, Muralitharan had been appointed a Non-Cabinet Minister for National Integration and Reconciliation by President Rajapaksa.

Addressing an august gathering at the ceremony, President Rajapaksa asserted that those carrying arms and weapons, should drop and abandon them spontaneously and automatically, in line with the country’s development and its prosperity.

“We earnestly need a country, a motherland, in which the Sinhalese, the Tamils, the Muslims and all communities could live in harmony and work together as one family.

Several progressive parties have already rallied around us and we are all working together under one banner. We cordially welcome them into the fray”, he said.

He claimed that similarly to the liberation of the East from the ruthless terrorists, the North too would be freed and liberated very soon. Like the Negenahira Navodaya (Eastern Renaissance), the ‘Northern Spring’ will follow thereafter.

“The East is being developed rapidly. The daunting challenges and problems confronted by the Eastern polity, is being addressed to and being solved gradually and systematically. The North will follow suit”, the President added.

President Rajapaksa pointed out that already a Tamil oriented and Tamil speaking civilian administration has been put into place.

Over 300 policemen have been recruited from the local community. Several other civilian appointments have been given to the civilians there.

Several infrastructural development projects such as roads, electricity, irrigation, bridges and water supply, are already under way in the region to facilitate and uplift civilian life and administration.

Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan addressing the gathering said that he was taking an epoch-making decision today, to join the SLFP and strengthen the hands of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he rightly considered as the greatest leader, liberator and saviour of the nation. “We will get-together to mould and build a progressive nation”, he stressed.

He opined that he made this crucial decision at a watershed moment in our history, as he believed that joining a major national party was the need of the hour, to give his people their proper and due identity. “If we are to develop our country, we ought to enter and participate in the national mainstream of politics”, he said.

General Secretary of the SLFP Minister Maithripala Sirisena asserted that the SLFP was never a racist party from its very inception. Within a short period of only three years, the Government under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has overcome several daunting challenges, the main being the defeat of LTTE terrorism which was once assumed to be impossible.

He praised Minister Muralitharan for taking this brave and timely decision of joining the SLFP, which he said was a great leap forward in the making of a great and prosperous nation. “V. Muralitharan is a young politician who has a great future ahead”, he added.

Ampara District Chief Organiser of the SLFP Kumaraswamy Pushpakumar also spoke.

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Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan

*Born in 1966 in Kiran, Batticaloa

*Joined the LTTE in 1983 and became a top commander in the district he represented.

*Acted as a bodyguard to the LTTE Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran

*Special commander of the LTTE in the Eastern Province and held the number two position in the LTTE hierarchy.

*Participated in several rounds of Peace Talks as a member of the LTTE delegation after the CFA was signed in 2002.

*Broke away from the LTTE on April 19, 2004 to create his own group. At that time he was the Leader of the LTTE’s armed wing. Later formed the political party Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP).

*Left Sri Lanka on November, 2007. Returned to the country on July 03, 2008 after serving a six month prison sentence in the UK.

*Took oaths as a Member of Parliament from the UPFA National List on October 07, 2008.

*Obtained SLFP party membership and took oaths as the National Integration and Reconciliation Minister (Non-Cabinet) on March 09,2009

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