ITAK’s new leader seeks release of Rajiv Gandhi’s killers; party in crisis
One of the first tasks of the Ilankai Thami Arasu Katchi’s (ITAK) newly elected President, Sivagnanam Shritharan, was to write a letter to the Chief Minister of the southern Indian state of Tamilnadu, M.K. Stalin. He appealed to him to release the four convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi murder, now in a jail in that state. The four are Santhan, Murugan, Robert Payas and Jayakumar. The ITAK leader feels that people in the north could look after the convicts better.
Tamil media outlets in the north gave wide publicity to the move by the new ITAK leader. He was unaware of two key factors. One was that he had no authority to make such a request though the January 29 dated letter to Chief Minister Stalin was signed both as ITAK leader and as a Jaffna District parliamentarian. The other – Stalin was only the Chief Minister of State and had no authority to dabble in a subject that lies with the centre. Therefore, it was an entirely a matter for the governments of India and Sri Lanka.
Shritharan also met with the British High Commissioner Andrew Patrick in Colombo last Thursday. Following the meeting, the High Commissioner tweeted, “A useful meeting with @ImShritharan following his appointment as president of @ITAKOrg. We discussed his priorities in addressing key concerns of Tamil Communities in the North and East.”
He has, however, not been able to have a similar one-on-one with India’s High Commissioner, Santosh Jha.
Perhaps, having met the new Indian High Commissioner along with other Tamil members of parliament and party leaders of North and East on January 23, Mr Shritharan could have counted that as the first diplomatic engagement since being elected as the party leader on January 21.
As reported in this column last week, the scheduled Central Committee and General Council meetings took place on Saturday, January 27, where Shanmugam Kuhathasan and various other office bearers were nominated and accepted by the General Council after a vote. There were, however, rumblings after the meeting was formally adjourned by the Immediate Past President Mavai Senathirajah who announced that the scheduled formal convention that was due to take place on Sunday, January 28 had been postponed, indefinitely. This came after a retired school principal was assaulted by another who is serving. The Trincomalee Police are now conducting an inquiry. One of the attendees stood up and exhorted that he would go to courts over what was going on.
This created a predicament and confusion within the ITAK members, as to who the current President, General Secretary, Central Committee Members are. Going by the announcement made by Senathirajah, one might say that at least, he has believed that he still is the President or so it seemed. Some members who are lawyers argue that according to the ITAK constitution once the Central Committee has formally met and conducted its business as usual on Saturday, January 27, at the end of that meeting, the immediate past president has relinquished his presidency and automatically the President Elect would have become the new President. They also say that once unanimously selected names of persons were presented by the Central Committee to the General Council and if the Council has accepted the recommendation of the Central Committee, those appointments are considered as formally ratified.
At the meeting, the Central Committee recommended the following names as office bearers for the next two years; General Secretary S. Kuhathasan, Senior Vice President S.V.K. Sivagnanam, Deputy General Secretary M.X. Kulanayagam, as Joint Treasurers are G. Srinesan, P Kanakasabapathy, as Deputy Presidents K.V. Thavarasa, C. Nirmalanathan, T. Kalaiyarasan, P. Ariyanenthiran, P. Sathiyalingam, as Joint Secretaries Sriskantharajah, R. Kanakarasa, K. Kurukularajah, E. Saravanabhavan, R. Shanakiyan, S. Sivamohan and Members of the Executive Committee to be the following persons, Abraham Sumanthiran, K. Paranchothy, Sayanthan, Ravikaran, Ratnavadivel, Yogeswaran, Kodiswaran, Kanakasingham, Jeyakumar.
However, due to the abrupt announcement made by the immediate past president of postponing the formal convention where Mr Shritharan as the new President would have made a formal policy statement and other traditional events that would have followed were all stopped.
Sumanthiran who was defeated by Shritharan at the election for presidency has sent a formal letter addressed to Mr Shritharan as the Leader. In the letter, he has chronologically listed the events at the Central Committee and General Council meetings of January 27, advising Shritharan to conduct the formal convention without any further delay to clear the doubts and confusion among the rank and file and to arrest all the negative publicity and rumours that are being shared in various social media platforms. In his letter, Sumanthiran warns that any further delay will be detrimental to the ITAK and the Tamil people. He has praised Shritharan for his decisive victory over him at the election and has commented that his victory has set a record not just for ITAK but even for the country, as this is the first time a leader of a party has been elected through a secret ballot.