Sri Lanka today said it would not opt for any mechanism other than the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to change the Constitution with regard to the island's provincial councils, including in the Tamil-dominated north.
Reacting to questions about rumblings within the ruling coalition over abrogating the India-sponsored thirteenth amendment (13A) of 1987, acting government spokesman and Minister of Petroleum Anura Yapa said, "The government treats the PSC as the real forum to discuss any change to the constitution."
"The issue needs broader consultation of all political parties," Yapa told reporters adding that there existed divergent views on the subject within the coalition.
The JHU (Heritage Party) and the National Freedom Front (NFF) both Sinhalese-majority nationalist allies of President Mahinda Rajapaksa have stepped up a campaign to abolish the 13A and the provincial councils system, the integral feature of the 1987 amendment.
The JHU wants to introduce a private members' bill in parliament which seeks to abrogate the 13A.
The move stems from fears that the main Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance would grab control of the northern provincial council in the elections slated for September.
Both JHU and NFF have claimed that TNA upon winning the polls would declare independence and that it would only facilitate the creation of a separate Tamil homeland that the LTTE failed to achieve during the brutal three-decade-long Sri Lankan civil war.
President Rajapaksa has called for convening of the PSC in order to achieve broader consensus among all stakeholders.
But, the move announced in the midst of stalled bilateral talks with TNA, led the Tamil party to dub it as a delaying tactic.
