Democratic People’s Front leader Mano Ganeshan yesterday said that he would quit politics if anyone produced evidence that he had been with Velupillai Prabhakaran in the LTTE leader’s swimming pool in the Vanni.

Responding to heavy propaganda attacks, particularly by National Freedom Front (NFF) leader Wimal Weerawansa, he challenged the government to play the ‘VCD which allegedly contained a film of him and Prabhakaran taken a few years ago’.

He said Weerawansa had publicly accused him of being with Prabhakaran in a swimming pool, though he was yet to produce any evidence. Asked whether he had taken up this issue with the government, he said that he asked Weerawansa to produce the much talked about VCD in the presence of Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, Chief Government Whip. "Although Weerasansa did not take up the challenge, Gunawardena asked me to ignore the allegation," he told The Island. He said Weerawansa was of the opinion that all Tigers in that particular VCD were dead and hence there was no need to reveal it now. The MP said that he had pointed that the VCD should be shown as he was still alive.

He said that if the government could produce the VCD, he would quit the presidential election campaign in support of former Army Chief General (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka. He said that the government had also falsely accused him of calling the Sri Lankan Tamils to arms in a speech he had delivered in Kilinochchi in 2004. "Fortunately for me, they had also carried the speech I made in Tamil, thereby giving at least the Tamil-speaking people an opportunity to get the correct picture."

He said that there were people who could not realise the difference between the concept of state and the government. He emphasised the need for equal rights to all communities in Sri Lanka, though he would never push for a separate state. "In fact, Pullidevan once phoned me and expressed disappointment over my political stance that all communities live in harmony in Sri Lanka," he said.

He regretted that the Rajapaksa administration had failed to take any tangible action to alleviate the suffering of the Tamil speaking people, particularly those living in the Vanni region, though the war had ended in May. Dismissing accusations that he was a Tamil nationalist bent on promoting separatism, he said that his ‘only crime’ was representing the interests of the Tamil speaking people.

Ganeshan said that he took pride in standing up for Tamil speaking people in Sri Lanka. Most of his parliamentary colleagues had sided with the SLFP-led ruling coalition for personal benefit, he said.