Tamil Congress.html |
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All Ceylon Tamil Congress (in Tamil: அகில இலங்கைத் தமிழ்க் காங்கிரஸ்), is the oldest Tamil political party in Sri Lanka. The ACTC was founded in 1944 by G.G. Ponnambalam. Due to the cooperation of the ACTC with the United National Party a group led by S.J.V. Chelvanayakam broke away in 1949, forming the Federal Party (FP). The ACTC stood for the principle of minority over-representation, so that the minority Tamils who had been promoted over the majority Sinhalese by the British Colonialists wouldn't lose their status after independence from the British Empire. The ACTC asked for a 50% representation of Tamils in parliament even though the Tamils only constituted 20% of Sri Lanka. This was immediately rejected by the British Governor General Lord Soulbury as a "mockery of democracy”.
The ACTC was largely discredited when their ally the UNP moved away from bilingual and bicommunal policies towards a pro-Sinhala stance. Thus the FP emerged as the major Tamil party in 1956.
In 1972 the ACTC and the FP formed the Tamil United Front, which later evolved into the Tamil United Liberation Front in 1976.
Ahead of the 2001 elections, ACTC joined the LTTE-backed Tamil National Alliance. In the 2004 elections the TNA won 6.9 % of the popular vote and 22 out of the 225 seats in parliament.
Some of the Leaders of this party
- G. G. Ponnambalam (Snr.)
- Kumar Ponnambalam
- Dr. Nalliah Kumaraguruparan
- A. Vinayagamoorthy
- Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam
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