Penelope Willis. Partly as a result of this, differences arose in 1979 among the cadre in Sri Lanka. The result was that the student wing of the EROS, the General Union of Eelam Students, split away from the EROS in 1980 to form a new organisation, the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front. EROS was also one of the main forces behind the attempt to form a united front, the Eelam National Liberation Front, in 1984, and remained the major driving force behind the front until it fell apart in 1986. Politics EROS contested the 1989 parliamentary election as an independent group in four electoral districts in the north-east of Sri Lanka. EROS won 229,877 votes (4.11%), securing 13 of the 225 seats in Parliament. Amongst the elected EROS MPs were Eliyathamby Ratnasabapathy and Eliyathamby Pararasasingam. LTTE association During the IPKF period, EROS was one of the few groups to support the LTTE and was in fact their main political advisory body as the EROS and LTTE worked in alliance with one another. In the late 1980s, differences arose amongst the EROS leadership over the question of whether or not they should militarily support the LTTE. In 1990, the group was effectively disbanded. One of its two top leaders, V. Balakumaran, together with a large portion of its members, left EROS to join the LTTE, saying it was a betrayal of the Tamil cause not to take up arms. The remnants of the group, led by Shankar Rajee, remained in Colombo and continued to call themselves EROS. They have transformed themselves into pro-government, anti-LTTE paramilitary group and a political party. Following the death of Shankar Rajee in 2005, his son Nesan Thirunesan took over as its new youth leader. EROS in popular culture Artist Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, better known as M.I.A., is the daughter of Arul Pragasam, a founding member of EROS. In her music, M.I.A. makes frequent references to the Sri Lankan Civil War and her father's participation in EROS. See also List of Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups#Student organizations References Nationalist parties in Sri Lanka Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist parties Political parties in Sri Lanka United People's Freedom Alliance 1975 establishments in Sri Lanka Political parties established in 1975