May 16, Colombo: Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa today appointed S. Chandrakanthan alias Pilliyan as the first ever Chief Minister of the Eastern Provincial Council. Mr. Chandrakanthan and other recently elected members of the Provincial Council took their oaths today at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo. The new Chief Minister, who is also the deputy leader of the Thamil Makkal Vidhuthalai Pulikal (TMVP), won the most preferential votes from the Batticaloa District at the recently concluded election.
The TMVP contested for the election under the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which secured the majority in the provincial council. During his election campaign, Chief Minister Chandrakanthan had highlighted that it was the Tamil people that suffered most in the decades-old terrorist war and hence it would certainly be favourable for them to have a Tamil Chief Minister who understood their problems better. He also requested social acceptance and support for his party to remain in mainstream politics, to which he said they had resorted in good faith, renouncing terrorism. Hours before the installation of the new Chief Minister, M.L.A.M Hizbullah along with two other Muslim members from Batticaloa elected to the Eastern Provincial Council informed the Eastern Province Governor that they would not support Chandrakanthan in the Council and would function as a separate group. The TVMP was formed as a political party by the group of LTTE cadres who had broken away from the main outfit with Karuna Amman, the LTTE's former eastern military leader.

(Pix: Sudath Silva)