TNA has 13 MPs with six new faces...!!!

TNA has 13 MPs with six new faces Monday, 12 April 2010 00:00
By Kelum Bandara

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has six new faces out of the total number of 13 MPs elected to the next Parliament on its ticket at this election.

The seven members who were in the last Parliament and elected this time are Mavai Senathirajah, R. Sampanthan, Suresh Premachandran, Selvam Adaikkalanathan, Vino Noharathalingam, Sivasakthi Ananthan and P. Ariyanenthran.

However, A. Vinayagamurthy and P. Selvarajah who won this time had been in Parliament earlier, but were not elected in 2004.The four other elected members are Proprietor of Uthayan, Sudar Oli newspapers, E. Saravanabhavan, S. Sritharan, M. Yogarajan and T. Piyasena.

TNA has 13

Mr. Piyasena who contested the election from the Digamadulla district is the only Sinhalese to represent the TNA in Parliament.

Nevertheless, the party has been represented by the Muslim member R. M. Imam during the last Parliament.

Mr. Piyasena’s father is a Sinhalese and mother a Tamil. He had lived in the Thirukkovil area for a long time doing politics with the EPRLF.

Once, he has functioned as the Chairman of the Thirukkovil Pradeshiya Sabha.

TNA MP for the Jaffna district Suresh Premachandran said the party would nominate lawyer M.A. Sumanthiran on the National List. Mr. Premachandran said his party would not nominate Mr. Imam as an MP this time.

The TNA did not field at least 11 of its members who were in the last Parliament for this election. Of them, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and Selvarajah Kajendran, Mrs. Pathmini Sithamparanathan, M.K. Sivajilingam and N. Sri Kantha contested under two different parties in the Jaffna district. However, none of them were elected. In 2004, Mr. Kajendran topped the TNA list with over 100,000 preferential votes. He was nominated for the election on the recommendation by the LTTE at that time.

Three TNA members namely Sivanathan Kishor, S. Kanagaratnam and Ms. Thangeswari Kathiraman, who were denied nominations by the party, contested the election on the UPFA ticket. Yet, they all were unable to retain their seats.

Daily Mirror.lk