Sri Lanka cannot mislead India under Modi, opposition says

Colombo: Sri Lanka would no longer be able to mislead India under Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi like it had done with the previous Congress-led UPA  government, the country's main opposition party has said.

Tissa Attanayake, the general secretary of the United National Party (UNP) told a gathering in the central district of Kandy on Saturday that the era of duping India had ended with BJP leader Modi's victory.

"Sri Lanka had incredibly misled Dr Manmohan Singh's government. It has now ended. Mr Modi is a forceful leader who has built his own power base," Attanayake said.

The UNP bigwig said Sri Lanka's failure to keep promises made to the Congress government was a main reason why Indo-Lanka relations had soured during the UPA government in Delhi.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was seen as having failed to keep the pledges made to Singh during his state visit to Delhi in 2010.

One such was the full implementation of the thirteenth amendment conferring unfettered powers to the northern provincial council in Sri Lanka's Tamil-dominated north.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and political parties in Tamil Nadu were critical of Rajapaksa's continuous failure to implement the "13 plus" policy or making provincial councils more meaningful.

TNA won the first ever elections to the northern provincial council in September last year and made repeated calls to allow full powers to the provinces.

The system of provincial councils was introduced after direct Indian intervention in Sri Lanka in 1987 as part of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord to resolve the then ongoing Sri Lankan civil war.