A ten-foot banner depicting the Jaffna District MP Ramanathan Archchuna garlanded with footwear was erected along a main road on the outskirts of Jaffna on Friday, in a public expression of anger over his conduct, before the MP himself arrived and tore it down.
The banner appeared amid mounting criticism of Archchuna's behaviour at divisional coordinating committee meetings in Jaffna, where he has been accused of using inappropriate language, acting without decorum and disrupting proceedings. The criticism intensified after videos circulating on social media showed him making what were described as offensive remarks during the Tellippalai Divisional Coordinating Committee meeting earlier in the week.
The ten-foot banner, displayed with a garland of shoes, a gesture of insult, was put up along the roadside in the wake of that controversy. Archchuna arrived at the site in his vehicle in the late morning on Friday, tore the banner down, and removed it, taking it away in his car.
Archchuna recently praised former president and accused war criminal Mahinda Rajapaksa, under whose presidency tens of thousands of Tamils were killed at Mullivaikkal in 2009, as the only figure he considered worthy of the title of president, speaking at an event in Kalutara held to honour him, and predicted that Rajapaksa's son Namal would resolve the Tamil question in the years ahead.
Weeks earlier, he had used a parliamentary speech to issue a violent threat against the Tamil Nadu nationalist leader Seeman, the founder of the Naam Tamilar Katchi, telling him that, had he been able to bring weapons into India, "I would have shot you."
A first-term independent MP elected from Jaffna in November 2024, Archchuna, a doctor, rose to prominence by exposing malpractice at the Chavakachcheri Base Hospital before entering politics. He has since become one of the most controversial figures in the Tamil polity, removed from a parliamentary sitting in May 2025, filmed brandishing a state-issued firearm during a land dispute in Jaffna, and the subject of complaints referred to the Committee on Ethics and Privileges.