The Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) has announced the party’s nine candidates including Chandrahasan Illankovan, the grandson of ITAK founder S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, who will contest the forthcoming Parliamentary polls from the Jaffna district.
According to ITAK spokesperson and former Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran, the ITAK candidates for the Jaffna district have been selected after an extensive discussion within the party’s central committee.
The ITAK candidates to be fielded at the forthcoming General Election from the Jaffna district are Sivaganam Sritharan, M.A. Sumanthiran, Kesavan Sayanthan, Chandrahasan Illankovan, Suhirthan Santhiralingam, Emmanuel Arnold (former Mayor of Jaffna), Sureka Sasinthiran, Krishnaverni Sritharan and Thiyagaraja Pragash.
In the meantime, the former Tamil militant groups who had entered the political mainstream following the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord and formed a broader alliance with the ITAK under the banner of Tamil National Alliance (TNA), are now contesting under a new alliance called the Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA).
The DTNA consists of two independent groups comprising former LTTE cadres, according to a former Parliamentarian and the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) leader who is also the spokesman of the DTNA.
He said that the parties aligned in the DTNA are the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, (TELO), People Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and Crusaders for Democracy.
The alliance’s symbol is the traditional Dravidian brass lamp.
The spokespersons of DTNA and ITAK pointed out that other candidates from the four other districts and from the Eastern Province would be announced shortly.
(Daily News)
(This story, originally published by Daily News has not been edited by SLM staff)
