As Sri Lanka’s president Anura Kumara Dissanayake visited Jaffna ahead of parliamentary polls last week, his party’s candidate in the district spoke of an era before the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and how the National People’s Power (NPP) would “bring that era back to life”.
NPP candidate Vennila Rasalingam was addressing the rally in Jaffna when she made the remarks.
“Before 2009, as youths we lived happily,” said Rasalingam. “Today, we have a leader who holds the promise of Anura Kumara Dissanayake.”
Rasalingam went on to highlight “Most of us here, we were in Vanni, we lost everything, our siblings, our people, we escaped with only our lives”, later proposing that the solution to this was “we all need to stand together to support the NPP and create a great country for our future generations”.
Though Rasalingam did not win a seat herself, the NPP won 3 seats in Jaffna.
