Kathiravelu Shanmugam Kugathaasan will fill the Parliamentary seat vacated by the late R. Sampanthan, the eldest parliamentarian of Sri Lanka. Kugathaasan is on the Trincomalee District preference list of the Tamil National Alliance from the last general election.
He contested under the Tamil National Alliance in the Trincomalee District during the last general election and was the first on the list of runners-up, receiving 16,770 preferential votes.
Accordingly, he is scheduled to take his oath as the new Member of Parliament for Trincomalee District next week. Mr. Sampanthan passed away last night while receiving treatment at a private hospital in Colombo at the age of 91
