The Tamil People’s Council (TPC) will impress upon the Sri Lanka government to ensure that enough safeguards for Tamils are provided in the proposed Constitution, the TPC’s chairperson and Chief Minister of the Northern Province, C.V. Wigneswaran. Contending that the Tamils had been experiencing “adverse effects” of the 1972 Constitution, which was not accepted by the Tamil leadership, the Chief Minister pointed out the Constitution did not have a provision equivalent to Section 29 (2) of the Soulbury Constitution of 1948 on the issue of protection of minorities’ rights.
Calling upon all Tamil political leaders to join the Council, he also stated that “Just because some hold views different to ours, we do not regard them as enemies. We seek cooperation of everyone as the Council is a movement of the Tamil people. We are not prepared to leave out or ignore anyone. P. Lakshman, co-chair of the TPC, told The Hindu that the Council’s main task was to adopt a bottom up approach in obtaining inputs from the people and this was why it should not be viewed as a challenger to the Tamil National Alliance.
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