The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R Sampanthan has said that their concerns have not been addressed and they will demand solutions from the new president Maithripala Sirisena.

"Now, our concerns have got to be seriously addressed, and we will demand a solution from Mr Sirisena," TNA president Rajavarothiam Sampanthan told The Telegraph newspaper in India, in his first interview to an Indian newspaper after the elections that ended Rajapaksa's 10-year-rule as President. "We are watching them (the new government) closely" he has added.

TNA had urged the Tamil people to vote for Sirisena and the support of Tamil voters helped tilt the battle in Sirisena's favour in an election in which the majority Sinhala vote was split between the then President, Mahinda Rajapaksa Rajapaksa and Sirisena.

Sirisena had asked the TNA to join his government after the elections, but the Tamil alliance has refused for now. It however agreed to take part in the National Executive Council that was formed soon after the election.

"We don't want to join the Sirisena government before first seeing what they do on our concerns," Sampanthan, an 81-year-old veteran MP from Trincomalee in the nation's north-east told The Telegraph.

Before the presidential elections, Sampanthan said, the TNA did not want to lay down any conditions for support.

"That would have communalised the atmosphere and helped in Sinhala consolidation behind Mr Rajapaksa," Sampanthan told The Telegraph. "We didn't want that. We thank our people for listening to us and voting for Mr Sirisena without any preconditions. But now, they have legitimate expectations."

Those expectations, though, are tempered by caution for many Sri Lankan Tamils. Though a poll-boycott call by members of the Tamil diaspora and smaller groups in the Northern Province did not have the kind of success such calls have had in the past, Jaffna district did register the lowest voting percentage in the country. Only 66 per cent of voters in Jaffna turned up at the hustings on January 8, compared with the national average of 81 per cent.
(with inputs from The Telegraph, India)