President Mahinda Rajapaksa said the election for the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) would be held in September this year.

After handing over land deeds to farmers at a function held at the Resource Centre in Weli Oya on Saturday, he gave this assurance. “The election will be held on the date and time indicated to me by my astrologer” he said.

After establishing provincial councils in 1987, this would be the first time that an election was to be held for the Northern Provincial Council separately. Initially the Northern Provincial Council had been amalgamated with the Eastern Provincial Council and the only election for the merged Northern and Eastern Provincial Councils were held in 1988.

There were no elections held thereafter for the merged council and it was dissolved in July 1990. The two provinces were de-merged after a lawsuit in 2006. The first election for the Eastern Provincial Council was held in 2008.

President Rajapaksa first gave an undertaking to hold the Northern Provincial Council election in September 2013 during an interview with the Chennai-based Hindu newspaper on July 11, last year.

The US-sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka that was adopted at the UNHRC sessions last month too had welcomed the President’s announcement on the election to the Northern Provincial Council.

Source: Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)