COLOMBO: P. Rajathurai, a member of parliament from Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition, crossed over to the opposition United National Party (UNP) on Tuesday.

The move is the latest in an ongoing series of defections from the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) in the run-up to the Jan 8 presidential elections.

Rajathurai, an Indian-origin Tamil from the tea plantation district of Nuwara Eliya, told media on Tuesday that the Mahinda Rajapaksa government had not fulfilled its electoral promises to plantation workers.

“During the 2005 and 2010 presidential elections, Rajapaksa had promised that he will give every plantation worker’s family 177 square metres of land, and a proper house, but he has not kept them. I am going to the opposition in the hope that it will give the plantation workers what has been their due for decades,” Rajathurai said.

The majority of voters in the tea plantation district of Nuwara Eliya are Tamils of Indian origin and 60 per cent of them belong to Rajathurai’s caste.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014