Mano Ganesan tells Mahinda Deshapriya
Enthusiasm shown by your department in removing the names of those who left the country in Jaffna district is not equally shown in adding new names and fixing the disparities in the registers. This attitude is very much reflected on the Tamil population of this country. There are near 300,000 eligible Tamil voters who are not registered as voters in the nine southern districts.
On the other hand not all the Tamils left the country from north and east have taken up foreign citizenships. There are near 100,000 Lankans living in refugee camps in India says Democratic Peoples Front leader Mano Ganesan in a email sent to election commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya. Ganesan says further in his mail to EC,
I understand your legal authority to change MP slots in electoral districts according voter numbers. But these are the first sets of updated registers you have in hand after the end of war. Recent war torn history of this country demands balanced action from your department. If not your department will face the danger of being accused of cutting down the Tamil participation in representative democracy in this country.
Your officials had informed media that Tamils who fled the northern area during the war have received new registrations in Colombo . This is far from truth. Large numbers of migrant Tamil residents in Colombo are not registered as voters in Colombo . This is due to the imprecise manual registration process and sets of non-computerized registers employed by your department. It is the fault of your outdated system.
I have already alerted you on the alarming disparity prevailing between the national and Tamil voter proportions while the former being 69% and the later being 46%. There are near 50,000 eligible Tamil residents who find it difficult to put their names in the electoral registration in Colombo district alone. This is the situation prevailing in Gampaha, Nuwara Eliya, Ratnapura , Kegalle, Kandy , Matale, Kalutara and Badulla districts.
Tamil voters in these districts are left at the mercy and discretion of the enumerators and GS officials to put their names in the registers.
Please convene a discussion with political parties and monitors involved in electoral process before changing the district wise MP slots
TC