Sri Lankan Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MP Sathasivam Viyalendiran, who has been accused of selling out his Tamil constituents, has been sworn in as the State Minister Of Backward Rural Areas Development and Promotion of Domestic Animal Husbandry and Minor Economic Crop Cultivation before Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the Presidential Secretariat.
Sathasaivam Viyalendiran who had previously been a member of PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organisation Of Tamil Eelam) and contested in the 2015 election as one of the Tamil National Alliance candidates in the Batticaloa District where he was elected to parliament with a voting count of 39,321 before defecting to the Rajapaksa-Sirisena government in 2018.
Following his defection, protesters had accused him of betraying his Tamil constituents. One placard held by a protester at the time read; “Don’t bring us slave status for your minister status”.
In the recent 2020 elections, Viyalendiran contested as an SLPP candidate in the Batticaloa District and was elected to government with a reduced voting share of 22,218.