Rasamanickam criticises Budget for ignoring Tamil national question

ITAK Batticaloa District MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam has criticised the 2027 Budget for making no reference to the Tamil national question, warning that the Government could face a strong backlash from the Tamil community if it continued to ignore the issue.

Speaking in Parliament on Saturday, Rasamanickam said it was “very unfortunate” that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had not mentioned the Tamil national question in his Budget speech.

He said a Budget speech was not merely a statement on the country’s fiscal position or the state of the economy, but also a policy statement setting out the Government’s plans and priorities for the coming year.

Rasamanickam said previous Presidents had at least acknowledged the existence of the unresolved Tamil national question in their policy statements, even though successive governments had failed to find a solution.

Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe had stated that the Tamil national question must be resolved, while former Presidents Maithripala Sirisena and Gotabaya Rajapaksa had also acknowledged the need to resolve the country’s national and ethnic question, he said.

“Every President, every country’s Head of State, in their policy statements, have acknowledged the fact that there is an unresolved national issue, the Tamil national question, that it needs to be resolved,” he said.

While successive governments had proposed different mechanisms to address the issue, none had succeeded, he said, adding that at least the issue had previously been acknowledged at the highest political level.

Rasamanickam also criticised Budget allocations for the Office on Missing Persons and the Office for Reparations, saying the victim community had rejected the existing domestic mechanisms.

“You are allocating money to a mechanism where the victim community is not going to be part of,” he said.

He also questioned the Government over an allocation of Rs.1 billion made in the previous Budget for development work at the Trincomalee and Jaffna airports.

“Where was that Rs.1 billion for the Trincomalee and Jaffna airports spent last year?” he asked.

Rasamanickam said he was increasingly concerned about the direction of the Government’s policies towards the Tamil community.

“The trajectory of this Government is worrying to me. It’s really worrying to me,” he said.

If the Government’s objective was to suggest that there was no longer a Tamil national question or that it had resolved the ethnic issues facing the country, the Tamil people would respond strongly at a future election, he warned.

“I think the Tamil people will teach this Government a very, very, very harsh lesson in the future,” Rasamanickam said.