’I don’t think Anura Kumara made any racist statement’: Sumanthiran

Colombo, September 8 (Daily Mirror)- TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran, who defended NPP Presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake over a controversial statement he is said to have made in the north, said he never thinks that Dissanayake uttered those words with a view to expressing any racist feelings.

"Anura Kumara Dissanayake made a statement in Jaffna stating that people in the South are expecting a change and the change will come with his election. But, the southern people might say that people in the north had not become participants of that change. When he used these words and said this, immediately, many people remembered what Gotabaya Rajapaksa had said at his swearing in ceremony in Anuradhapura after he was elected President. He said 'I want everybody to be participants in my victory. But, the northern people did not join me in this victory. People in the north had a sense which was proved right because it was the people who elected him who chased him away," Sumanthiran told the media.

Sumanthiran said he never thinks comrade Dissanayake made that statement with a view to expressing any racist feelings and that he has taken great care in eradicating racism in this country. 

"I do not think comrade Anura Kumara said these words with a view to expressing any racist feelings. I know him too well. He is not such a person. He has taken great care in eradicating racism in  this country. We do not have different feelings on this matter," he added.

He also said they will join with Dissanayake in eradicating misrule and corruption in the country. 

"He can count on us for that. We will also count on him in the governing structure that people have been agitating for over 70 years," he said.