Minister lashes out at UNF govt. over IDP’s plight

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 November 2003, 14:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Hindu Religious Affairs Minister, Mr. T.Maheswaran, Friday lashed out against his own (United National Front) government that it has not taken any concrete steps to alleviate the suffering of several thousand internally displaced people (IDP) in the Jaffna district for the last two years." IDP are still languishing in the refugee camps and welfare centres with out any future since the signing of the ceasefire agreement," said Mr. Maheswaran participating in the budget debate when it resumed Friday morning, parliamentary sources said.

Pandemonium reigned in the house as members of both sides entered into a heated argument when it was brought to the notice of the chair that a ruling party parliamentarian had been engaged in recording Minister Maheswaran’s speech and the time allocated for Mr. Maheswaran had expired. When the opposition parties said they would allocate ten minutes of their time to Mr. Maheswaran to continue his speech the situation went beyond control and Mr.Ravindra Randeniya who was in the chair suspended the sitting for about ten minutes, parliamentary sources said

When the sitting resumed Minister Maheswaran continued his attack on his government. He said the government has not done any service to the welfare of the Tamil people in the northeast province. Tamil people would not be benefited by the increase of salary to public servants. No development proposal for the northeast province has been included in the current budget now being debated, he added.

Mr. Maheswaran warned that he would resign from the post of MP if the government failed to provide any service to Tamils in the province before the end of this year. No status of dignity has been accorded to Tamils in the northeast province under the two-year rule of the UNF government, he charged.