Sri lanka’s largest Tamil party TNA was on Thursday declared the main Opposition in the parliament with its chief R Sampanthan becoming the leader of Opposition, the first lawmaker from the minority community to hold the position in 32 years.
“As the UPFA did not make any claim for the opposition leader’s post, I (would) like to inform the house that Mr Sampanthan, the leader of the TNA, has been recognised as the leader of the Opposition,” Speaker Karu Jayasuriya told parliament on Thursday.
The TNA, which fought election under the symbol of Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), won 16 seats in the August 17 parliamentary polls.
82-year-old Sampanthan becomes only the second Tamil to lead the opposition in the history of the country. In 1977 then main Tamil United liberation Front (TUlF) leader Appapillai Amirthalingam became the Opposition leader. The TUlF in 1983 walked out of parliament as they failed to take oaths upholding the unitary constitution in the face of the demand for secession to create a separate Tamil homeland.