The appointment of Bhanu, to replace Ramesh as the LTTE Ampara-Baticaloa leader, has met with strong opposition from the Tamil population of the province, defence sources said.
Ramesh was replaced by Bhanu as he had failed to win the co-operation of the people in the east. The main reason for his failure was that he was not from the east but from Jaffna, sources said.
Bhanu a resident of Ariyalai, in the north, was the head of the heavy weapons division of the LTTE before he was posted to the east.
The sources said that Bhanu was not popular amongst the LTTE cadres of the east. Last April the breakaway LTTE eastern leader Karuna Amman had charged the LTTE leadership of ignoring their eastern cadres and appointing only northerners as area leaders.
The friction between the LTTE cadres of the North and the East resulted in the failure of the last hartal organised by the Wanni command in the Eastern Province.
