Sri Lanka nationalist organization calls for investigating Tamil MP's refusal to hoist national flag

The Patriotic National Movement (PNM), a Sinhala nationalist organization of Sri Lanka has called for an investigation to be carried out against a parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for refusing to hoist the country's national flag during a function.
The PNM says an investigation must be carried out against TNA Jaffna District Parliamentarian Appathurai Vinayagamoorthy for rejecting to hoist the National flag during an event held in Jaffna recently. Vinayagamoorthy has refused to hoist the national flag when Social Services Minister Felix Perera has invited him to do so at a function held at the Weerasingham Hall in Jaffna, on Friday to distribute livelihood assistance to about 400 people in the North. At the beginning of the event Minister Perera has invited the Vinayagamoorthy to hoist the National flag to start the event. The Minister has reportedly tried to persuade the MP for about five minutes. The Minister has told media that he always gives prominence to the representative of the people of the area to do the honors but despite his persuasion Vinayagamoorthy has refused. The MP however, had defended his actions saying that there are over 25,000 deserving people that are still displaced in the area and that they are not being treated as equal citizens in their own country, The Nation reported. In contrast to the MP's actions, his party's leader R. Sampanthan waved the national flag with the Opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe at a joint opposition May Day rally in Jaffna last month.