Sri Lanka, March 24 -- The Parliamentary election held on March 22, 1965 was an important turning point in the post-independence history of Sri Lanka known as Ceylon then. It was this election held sixty years ago that led to the formation of a seven party national Government under Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake after the signing of an agreement (Dudley-Chelva pact) with Tamil leader SJV Chelvanayagam. This column focuses on the March 1965 poll and what happened thereafter.

Parliament comprised 151 elected and 6 appointed MPs then. When the March 1965 election results were announced no single party had obtained a simple majority on its own. It was a hung Parliament.

The United National Party (UNP) polling 1,590,929 (39.31%) of the vot...