Police, SLA partial to UPFA in JMC election

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 04:39 GMT]
Political parties and Independent groups contesting the forthcoming Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) elections accused the police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) for being partial to United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) in the issue of campaign wall posters, sources in Jaffna said. Though the police authorities had banned all wall posters and had ordered the removal of the posters, the police and the SLA had only torn and tarred the posters of Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (TAK) political parties, leaving the UPFA posters untouched, the sources added.

Police authorities held a meeting recently with the representatives of all parties contesting JMC election, at Veambadi Girls’ College, where it was decided to ban all election campaign wall posters.

Following the meeting, the police and SLA had set about tearing and tarring only the wall posters of the TULF and TAK pasted in Jaffna but had left the posters of the ruling UPFA and EPDP untouched.

Thousands of wall posters of UPFA and EPDP are found pasted in Jaffna peninsula and the police and SLA are reluctant to remove or tear them for fear, the accusing political parties said.

According to election regulations wall posters and other such articles can only be displayed inside an election campaign office.

But, the wall posters of UPFA, EPDP and EROS are found pasted on the walls along the main roads in Jaffna town, the sources said.