COLOMBO, NOV 9: Sri Lanka may hold a referendum on a controversial ethnic peace plan amid an outright rejection from Tamil Tiger rebels and mounting political opposition.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga is already on record that the government would stage a ``Constitutional revolution'' if the main opposition United National Party (UNP) blocked her government's draft new Constitution, including the devolution package, in Parliament.

The government requires two-thirds majority support in Parliament to enact the new Constitution, whose draft proposals were presented to Parliament last week.

However, the ruling People's Alliance (pa) has only a single-seat majority in the 225-member Parliament, making the UNP's support for the new Constitution crucial. Political circles had branded the budget for 1998, presented to Parliament, last week as a ``referendum'' or ``election'' budget.

The fact that the budget proposed no major additional taxes burden on the common man was attributed by these circles as an indication that the government proposed to go to the people for their support for its constitutional reforms plan. Press reports said that the government would hold a non-binding referendum if the present efforts to gain the UNP's support for the Constitutional reforms proposals failed.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , which is waging a bloody a separatist campaign in the north-east, has already rejected the devolution package as a ``conspiracy'' against the Tamils. ``This does not recognise the concept of Tamil eelam,'' the rebels' official organ, Viduthalaipuligal, said in its latest issue, referring to the separate state they are fighting for.

While the national struggles of the Palestinians and the Scottish people were gaining acceptance, the Sri Lankan government was ``going back in history'' by trying to impose Sinhala rule in the North and treating the Tamils as a minority, instead of a separate nation, it added.

Meanwhile, UNP leader and former prime minister Ranil Wickremensinghe has advocated what he termed as ``need-based devolution'' on the basis of the 13th amendment to the Constitution under which the present Provincial Councils were set up.

In an interview published in The Sunday Times today, he said the devolution of powers had to be asymmetrical, depending on the powers different provinces required he noted that the Tony Blair Government in Britain had proposed a need-based devolution for Scotland and Wales and limited role for Britain.

He agreed that it was necessary to devolve additional powers to the North-East to arrive at a political solution to the ethnic conflict. ``But do we have to devolve such extensive powers to the other provinces. The question arises whether people in the other provinces want such extensive powers devolved to their provincial councils,'' he said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.