Despite the unhappiness of the Tamil people, no big political movement was undertaken till the early 1970s. Eventually in May 1976, there was a public demand for a Tamil state. During the 1956 election the Federal party had replaced the Tamil congress. The party was bent on "the attainment of freedom for the Tamil-speaking people of Ceylon by the establishment of an autonomous Tamil state on the linguistic basis within the framework of a Federal Union of Ceylon". However it did not have much success. Thus in 1972, the Federal Party, Tamil Congress and other organizations banded together into a new party called the "Tamil United Front".