[16] Since then the JVP has entered mainstream democratic politics and has updated its ideology, abandoning some of its original Marxist policies such as the abolition of private property,[17] and moderating its rhetoric.

[21] In the 2024 Sri Lankan parliamentary elections, the JVP led NPP alliance won with 159 seats in the parliament, winning a supermajority.

The JVP considered the entry of three leftist parties into the United Front in 1964 as a conscious betrayal of the aspirations of the people and the working class.

[citation needed] When Wijeweera's further education was threatened as a result of his father's incapacitation, the CPSL arranged a scholarship for him to study medicine at the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow, where he read the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Lenin, and became a committed Marxist.

After a visit to Sri Lanka in 1964, he was not permitted to return to the USSR: his student activism in favour of Maoism while in Moscow displeased the Russians.

Through his father's political activities, Wijeweera contacted Kumarasiri and joined the party's staff and became part of the trade union office.

Although the insurgents were young, poorly armed, and inadequately trained, they seized and held major areas in the southern and central provinces of Sri Lanka before they were defeated by the security forces.

Their attempt to seize power created a major crisis for the government and forced a fundamental reassessment of the nation's security needs.

In response to his arrest and the growing pressure of police investigations, other JVP leaders acted immediately, and started the uprising at 11:00 p.m. on 5 April.

In both human and political terms, the cost of the victory was high: an estimated 30,000 insurgents, according to the JVP, many of them in their teens, died in the conflict.

In order to win over an alienated population and to prevent a prolonged conflict, Bandaranaike offered amnesties in May and June 1971, and the top leaders were imprisoned.

Organised in multiple cells countrywide and mostly based around the capital Kandy in the centre, the JVP murdered probably thousands of people and crippled the country with violently enforced hartals (general strikes) for three years.

[33][34] What is certain is the methods of death, including necklacing, victims eviscerated and left to die, and even the occasion of eighteen heads arranged around the Alwis pond at the University of Peradeniya, which occurred the day after T.E.

[36] The JVP military section which was made up mostly of inadequately trained youths, were responsible for attacks on several locations throughout Ceylon, including on the Jaffna prison,[37] SLAF Ekala and the Wellawaya town in 1971.

Despite the lack of training they received, the JVP militants were armed with shotguns, wore blue colored uniforms with boots and helmets, carried hatchets, and ammunition.

The leader of the JVP, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, criticised the procedure, claiming North Korea is socialist and that Sri Lanka should support it.

[51] The JVP's initial mixed ideology was shaped by its origin from Maoism and exposure to other forms of Marxism, such as drawing on Maoist emphasis on the rural peasantry, Guevarist views on armed insurrection, and some Trotskyist criticisms of Stalinism while maintaining an anti-revisionist line.

[51] In 1983, the JVP's ideology was modified, as the party foresaw the consequence of inaction against Indian intelligence agencies (particularly the Research and Analysis Wing) infiltrating the national patronage.

[59] In 1978, the UNP introduced commissions to charge UF members for ignoring or violating human rights in events such as the humiliation, rape, and murder of Premawathie Manamperi.

[66] Shortly after the 2004 tsunami, the JVP believed the Sri Lankan government was seeking assistance from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

After multiple arguments, the JVP and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU; Sinhala National Heritage) protested against the peace involvement from Norway.

Other independent intellectuals, like Dayan Jayatilleka, Nalin de Silva and Mohan Samaranayake, pointed out that the Rajapaksha agreement with the JVP ensured his victory.

Media reports said that Weerawansa had an argument with the leadership based on the disarmament of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal political party, which was attempting to participate in the country's eastern provincial council elections to be held in May 2008 under the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance.

[70][71] A member of the party, Piyasiri Wijenayake, accused the UNP of conspiring against the JVP at a media conference held at Nippon Hotel in Colombo on 8 April 2008.

[72] Wijenayake told BBC that his and Achala Suranga Jagoda's vehicles were forcefully removed by the group led by Jayanatha Wijesekara, a Member of Parliament from the Trincomalee district.

[73] Weerawansa's group visited the most senior Buddhist monks of Asgiriya and Malwatte chapters on 20 April 2008 to seek blessings for their new political movement.

[76] JVP formed a coalition with UNP to support Sarath Fonseka, the former army chief, in the 2010 presidential elections,[77] but he was defeated by the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa.

[78] After this, the UNP left the coalition and the JVP contested the general elections along with Sarath Fonseka's factions under the banner of Democratic National Alliance.

[citation needed] Several student union leaders like Duminda Nagamuwa, Udul Premaratne, and Chameera Koswatta sided with the FLSP.

[80] JVP neither contested nor directly supported any coalition in the January 2015 presidential election, but it heavily criticised incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa, which assisted in his defeat.