Colombo  – Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa party took an early lead in Saturday's provincial election in the eastern province, where the military ousted Tamil rebels in a series of a military operations earlier.

The ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won the Batticaloa district by securing six seats as against four seats for the main opposition United National Party
(UNP) and a minority Tamil party known as the Tamil Democratic National Alliance getting one seat.

The UPFA obtained 58.09 per cent of the votes while the UNP polled 32.31 per cent and the Tamil Alliance got 4.25 per cent.

Results of two more districts Trincomalee and Ampara were to be released.

President Rajapaksa is trying to establish political leadership in the first provincial elections 20 years, after driving the Tamil rebels from the area.

Nearly 60 per cent of the near 1 million voters turned up to vote in the three districts.

Election monitoring groups and the opposition highlighted election irregularities including cases of impersonation, stuffing of ballot boxes, driving away polling agents of opposition parties and cases of intimidation. The UPFA denied the claim and called the elections free and fair.

The opposition alleged the UPFA forged identity cards for names of voters who are displaced or those who have left the country due to the conflict. (dpa)