TNA MP claims bid to change demographic pattern in Jaffna district Through proposed amendments to Elections Act

By Franklin R. Satyapalan-May 25, 2013, 6:39 pm 

TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran yesterday accused leaders of some Muslim political parties of directly or indirectly helping the government to carry out its "diabolical designs to introduce amendments to the Elections Act to induct new voters into the Electoral Register in a bid change the results of the forthcoming Northern PC poll" .

"This has created fear among the Tamil people of an organized attempt to settle Sinhalese in the North to change the present demographic pattern in the Jaffna district", he asserted.

The TNA MP said that he did not get any opportunity of seeing the draft of the Amendment in this regard, which will reportedly presented in Parliament on June 6 as an urgent Bill .

"We strongly believe that all what the government wants to do is to register new voters under the guise of registering persons who were displaced after 1983. Actually, these persons were those who had come temporarily to the Jaffna district for business, employment or other purposes and are now registered as voters in their places of residence in other parts of the South of the country", he said.

He said that despite earlier statements by those in authority, the Electoral Register for 2012 has now been prepared properly and certified, but with the polls to the Northern PC around the corner, statements are being issued that amendments are to be introduced to register all Sinhalese and Muslims displaced from the North after 1983.

"The fact is that the majority if not all these people are registered as voters in places of residence in the South of the country", he claimed.