‘India a feature, not a factor, in Sri Lanka election campaign’

Island nation goes to polls today

- ADITI PHADNIS

As Sri Lanka awaits the official verdict of its presidential election - and experts are divided on the outcome - there is one fact on which they are unanimous on both shores of the Indian Ocean: That this was the first election in the country in decades which did not see India as a factor in the domestic politics of the island.

Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director at the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives, a think tank, has a more nuanced reading of the situation.

"India has been a feature in the election campaign. But I would not say it has been a factor," he told Business Standard on the phone from Colombo.

Yash Sinha, former Indian high commissioner to Colombo, agrees.

"For Sri Lankans, this election is a way of overcoming the trauma of the economic hardship they have just been through, a way of speaking out.... India is not a factor."