The J.R.Jayawardene government that came to power in 1977 rectified the existing shortcomings of the Indian citizenship act and granted citizenship to all Indian estate workers (see below). Even at that time, Thondaman was the leader of the Ceylon Workers Congress, the party of the Hill Country Tamils, and had become a skilful player of minority-party politics. He had avoided joining with the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) resolutions of 1974, which had continued with the policies of the ITAK. Thus the Hill Country Tamils had successfully charted a course of cooperating with successive Sri Lankan governments.