Colombo, April 10 Council elections in Sri Lanka's nine provinces, which have been pending since 2014, are expected to be further delayed as a cross-party select committee has requested clarification from the legal department on the difficulties in holding the elections, it was announced on Friday.
A statement from the Parliament's press office said the cross-party select committee, tasked with recommending an electoral system for the elections, met on Tuesday with Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath in the chair.
The committee has decided to ask the Attorney General's department to prepare a report on the legal position to understand the difficulties in holding the election, the statement said.
India has been urging Sri Lanka to implement the 13th Amendment (13A), which was introduced after the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan agreement and provides for the devolution of power to the Tamil minority-dominated regions in the island nation through provincial councils.
The provincial council elections have not been held since 2014 due to the 2017 Provincial Council Elections Amendment Act. The delay since 2018 was caused by the need to delineate electoral division boundaries to facilitate the transition to the new hybrid election system from the original proportional representation system, the committee pointed out.
The delimitation commission report relevant to the 2017 amendment has not been handed over to the president by the then prime minister as required by law.
Accordingly, the select committee had decided to ask the Attorney General to review the legal status, the statement said.
Officials from the independent election commission and the Attorney General's Department were present at the deliberations of the select committee.
The Indian intervention came in the midst of a bloody armed campaign by the LTTE, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who had been conducting a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years before its collapse in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its supreme leader, V Prabhakaran.
Indian troops were deployed in Sri Lanka in July 1987 to oversee the implementation of the Indo-Lanka Accord between then Sri Lankan President J R Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The ruling National People's Power (NPP) partner, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), had then led a bloody rebellion against the Indo-Lanka Accord between then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan president J R Jayewardene.
The issue was also raised during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Colombo in April 2025, and the Indian government has repeatedly urged the Sri Lankan government to hold the delayed provincial council elections as soon as possible.