Viswalingham Mannivannan resigned as Mayor of Jaffna last week after his 2023 budget for Jaffna Municipal Council was defeated by seven votes.
Mannivannan wrote to the Jaffna Municipal Commissioner and Local Government Commissioner to inform them of his decision to resign.
Sources close to Manivannan said that despite the opportunity to present the budget for the second time, Manivannan took the decision to resign after not getting the necessary support.
Mannivannan was elected as Jaffna Mayor in December 2020. During his tenure, Mannivannan was arrested by Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) in April 2021, who claimed the uniforms worn by the task force were similar to those formerly worn by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Tamil Eelam Police and were thus an attempt to resurrect the LTTE. The charges against him were dropped a year later.
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