COLOMBO, Feb. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Sri Lanka's main opposition said here Friday that it would resort to legal action against the country's election authorities for their rejection of the party's nomination list for the Colombo Municipal Council.

    Sri Lanka's main opposition United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said that legal action would be filed against the decision by the election authorities which is set to cost the party the control of the capital city for the first time in over three decades.

    The UNP list of candidates for the Colombo Municipal Council was rejected Thursday due to the inclusion of an underaged candidate.

    Wickremesinghe said the officials should have allowed the candidate to be replaced with another rather than reject it.

    Elections are to be held on March 30 to elect representatives to some 330 local councils for a four-year term in the entire island.

    The decision by the election authorities had dealt a blow to the sagging morale of the UNP supporters.

    Wickremesinghe lost the November 2005 presidential election narrowly to the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapakse and since then the UNP has been embroiled in internal dissent.

    The UNP controls a larger majority of the councils which they won in the last local election held in 2002. Enditem