Sri Lankan minister in trouble over invite to south Indian actresses

Sri Lankan minister Jeevan Thondaman is in trouble for inviting south Indian actresses for the Thai Pongal celebrations in Hatton, in the country’s tea-growing estate.

A Sri Lankan newspaper on Wednesday quoted Letchumanar Sanjay of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party as asking Thondaman, also a leader of the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), why he called the Indian actresses instead of local artistes.

The actresses

The SJB leader accused Thondaman of using tax payers’ money to host the Indian actors at a time when Sri Lankans were suffering due to a failed economy, Daily Mirror reported.

Actresses Aishwarya Rajesh, Aishwarya Dutta, Samyuktha Menon and Meenakshi (Pinky Sarkar) attended the Pongal celebrations in Hatton on January 21.

Economic plight

Sanjay said: “Student dropouts have increased in the Nuwara-Eliya District and many families are suffering from hunger. People gave more than 100,000 votes and sent them to parliament to get the services done for them. But Jeevan Thondaman is bringing south Indian actresses."

Further, he asked where the money for the visit had come from. "Jeevan Thondaman, as a representative of the people, should definitely answer for wasting people's money in this manner,” he added.

The CWC is the main representative of the so-called Indian Tamil community which works in the tea estates. Most of them are descendants of Tamils brought to Sri Lanka from India by the British as indentured labourers.