The Enigmatic Emergence of the Southern Prodigy
Impact of Cabinet Conflict and VFS Fiasco on Government
Diana’s Citizenship Verdict Sends Shockwaves Among SJB Defectors
Ranil’s Strategic Maneuver to Elevate Milinda Could Spell Disaster for Him
Ranil’s Strategy of Setting End-of-June Deadline Raises Suspicions of Election Avoidance to Outmaneuver Basil
Wijedasa and Ranil’s Conflict Intensifies with Milinda’s Involvement
Split verdict
The last two weeks have not been very auspicious for the president and the government. We say this because the country’s highest court, the Supreme Court, delivered two historic decisions that shuck the country during this period. The first decision was to ban the right of the President to appoint any judge to the Supreme Court except the Chief Justice until next October. The Supreme Court imposed this ban, putting an end to the supreme power that the President had until now. Supreme Court Judges S. Thureiraja, A.H.M.D. Nawaz and Shiran Gunaratne had given this decision and through this decision, the President has been completely barred from appointing any judge to the Supreme Court until the presidential election is called. In particular, the Supreme Court gave this decision when the President had proposed to appoint Mr. Bandula Karunaratne, who has served twice as the President of the Court of Appeal, to the Supreme Court. But in both cases, the appointment did not take place because the Constituent Assembly did not approve the appointment. But with this Supreme Court decision, the President has been prevented from appointing any judge to the Supreme Court until the presidential election is called.
Diana Out
The second decision was the decision given by the Supreme Court last Wednesday removing Mrs. Diana Gamage, who was a minister of state in the government. It can be said that this decision is a more serious situation faced by the government than the first decision. No one had even thought about such a thing until the news that the final decision regarding the position of a state minister Mrs. Diana Gamage was going to be released that very morning on our news website. After we published the story, we received many called to check the reliability of the story and to know what the outcome of the case would be, whether Diana would have to go home, etc. We informed all of them that according to the sources from the legal fraternity, this is a decisive verdict to the county.
Based on Diana’s British citizenship, this case was first referred to the Court of Appeal by Oshala Herath, a civil activist who contested from the UNP list. Later, Samagi Jana Balawega also took steps to mediate as a party in that case. However, at the end of the case, in a split decision of the Court of Appeal, it was said that there is no problem for Mrs. Diana Gamage to hold the position of MP. Judges Bandula Karunaratne and Khema Swarnadhipati were of the same opinion, and only Judge Marikkar had expressed his decision that Diana could not hold the position of MP. Oshala Herath filed an appeal before the Supreme Court against the judgment. Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court gave a historic decision and ruled that Diana Gamage should not hold the position of Member of Parliament.
First call to Sajith
However, when Diana’s MP position was abolished by the Supreme Court, the opposition leader Sajith was in the parliamentary lobby in discussion with some MPs. In a call received by Sajith, it was said that the Supreme Court decided to remove Diana from the position of MP through a unanimous judgment of three to zero. Immediately, when Sajith informed the news to all the MPs there and the SJB MPs inside the Parliament, the entire opposition was seen bursting with happiness. At that moment, when the news was reported to us, we exposed it to the country for the first time through the our news website. All other national websites and media reported the related news after several minutes passed after we reported the news. Member of Parliament Nalin Bandara informed the Parliament about the news for the first time and informed that the entire Parliament was freed from a headache.
However, many people who spoke to Sajith later congratulated him and asked who would be appointed to the position of National List MP vacated by Diana. Sajith said to the few people who spoke, ‘We are a party that knows what to do. At a very difficult time for the party, MP Mujibur Rahman made a great sacrifice to run for the position of Colombo Mayor. I will bring him to the parliament.’ Also, Sajith immediately called Mujibar and asked him to bring the related case verdict and get ready to take the oath of office on Friday.
In this way, when the judgment of Diana’s case was getting spread, a huge collapse was seen in the government through this judgment. Especially according to the verdict, there was a danger of many more lawsuits against Diana. There are signs that several cases will be brought before the court against Diana based on preparing false documents, submitting false documents to Parliament, the Election Commission as well as to the court, problems related to the passport, as well as illegally receiving salaries from people’s tax money, receiving priority, etc.
A campaign from the government
However, in order to moderate this multi barrel attack on the government, it was seen that some websites and social media networks were taken over by the government and certain news was published. It was said in the news that with the cancellation of Diana’s councillorship, there is a risk of losing the councillorships of the SJB councilors as well. The government had taken steps to read the same news in the parliament through several ministers, and to give a lot of publicity to it through the government’s media and the media friendly to them.
Within a few hours, the news became completely false with the statement made by the former Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya to the media. Former ‘Mako’ pointed out that the cancellation of Diana’s MP does not have any legal effect on other MPs.
The Election Commission has not felt the need to check whether the officials of the political parties are Sri Lankan citizens. There is no legal reference that it is necessary. Under this circumstances, I don’t think that Mrs. Diana Gamage holding the position of secretary will hinder the legality of accepting the Samagi Jana Balawega as a political party.”
A critical case
However, along with Diana’s case verdict, many people in the political arena have also focused on another special case which has been examined. It is the case of removal of Harin Fernando and Manusha Nanayakkara from the party. Laxman Kiriella, the chief organizer of the opposition, who made a special statement in the Parliament recently, said that two judges have finished writing the judgment in this regard, while one judge is reluctant to do so. Kiriella said there that the decision should be given within two months of the case being assigned, so if the judgment is delayed further, steps will be taken to reveal the name of the judge in question before Parliament.
Accordingly, with this statement made by Kiriella, many people’s attention has been focused on it. Especially since this statement was made in relation to a court case, it is noted seen that it is being discussed in the political arena the truth of it. Many people are of the opinion that if what Kiriella said is true, there should be a big discussion in the society, and if it is false, legal action should be taken against Kiriella.
However, many of the people who spoke to Sajith after Diana’s judgment had asked about who would be appointed to Parliament if such a verdict was reached regarding these two MPs. There, Sajith had told all of them that he had already taken a special decision in this regard. Friends asked what it was, but Sajith said that it was a big secret, and if that happened, they would bring two people who could fight a huge battle inside the parliament during the last few months.
V.F.S.bomb
The second bomb that exploded inside the government last week was the issue of visas in this country by V.F.S. Global Company. It was Sajith, the leader of the opposition, who first spoke about it in the parliament. Sajith said that there is a risk of a serious problem arising in the tourism sector by giving the visa to another company. After Sajith’s statement, everyone started to find out what was the story behind this. At the same time, a large amount of information was revealed to the country one by one that was not noticed by anyone behind this deal.
There, the opposition MPs such as G.L. Peiris and Marikkar told the parliament that the government had planned to commit a fraud of 15 billion through this transaction. GL said that it is second only to the Central Bank bond fraud. Mr. Peiris and Mr. Marikkar pointed out in Parliament. In this way, with this disclosure of the opposition, VFS racket surfaced. The controversy took a new turn when Mr. Harin Fernando, who is the Minister of Tourism, held a press conference and stated that he knew nothing about this transaction and that he had not heard anything about this. Harin said that Mr Tiran Alas, who is in charge of the relevant subject, is currently abroad, and said that after Tiran arrives in Sri Lanka on Monday, he will call a press conference and inform the country about the relevant information.
The Minister of Public Security, Mr. Tiran Alas, had forwarded the cabinet paper that would include the V.F.S Global company in the visa issuance operation. At the time of this incident, Tiran was attending some medical tests in Singapore. As mentioned, Tiran, who came to Sri Lanka on Monday and spoke to the media, said that there is no problem behind this, it is a technical error and that the company in question will continue to issue visas.
Who is the mighty son of the South?
However, special news related to the V.F.S. deal was received by the opposition leaders. The information said that a son of a politician who holds a powerful position in the South is involved in this transaction. Otherwise, it is said that this deal was brought by that particular son. But the problem is who offered him this deal. There is currently a lot of talk in the industry about whether he is currently active in politics or a powerful person who has retired from politics.
The opposition says that the government made this deal to find the necessary money to spend on the upcoming presidential election. In return, it is said by the opposition that the southern politician has been given privileges to move to the places he likes.
However, this time we are ready to reveal a story that no one knows about this southern politician in the ‘inside politics’ column. Recently, this powerful politician from the south has held talks with the leaders of the SJB to accommodate as Samagi Jana Balavegaya candidate.
After Tiran’s press conference on this matter on Monday, the controversy regarding the V.F.S. deal was seen to escalate further. After the commencement of the parliamentary session on Tuesday, the opposition has exposed the issue further. The heads of the government had also received information from the opposition that they were ready to take over the deal. Accordingly, the cabinet meeting held on Monday evening had become extremely crucial from the government’s point of view.
Resignation
Under such a background, an unexpected event was witnessed in the cabinet. Harin Fernando minister attempted to present his resignation based on this V.F.S deal. After that, Harin, who spoke there, said that based on the V.F.S. deal, some people are slandering him and accusing him, and that he has nothing to do with the deal. To everyone’s surprise, Ali Sabri and Ramesh Pathirana support Hareen. It is not possible to say whether the President was aware of this sequence of events or not, but after the comments of the two, the President said, ‘No if there is such an objection, we should work to amend it. Previously, they charged 50 dollars for visas. Now VFS Company adds another $25 and gets $75. Now that this has become a problem, let’s bring it straight to 50 as before. Of that, $10 goes to V.F.S. Let’s put it together.’ It was noted discussion on this ended there when the President gave his final decision. None of the other ministers could be seen protesting it.
After concluding the cabinet meeting held in this manner, the president and the ministers attended the meeting of the ruling party MPs group held on the same floor. A great controversy had arisen in the country on the V.F.S. deal, but only 26 to 28 members of the government participated in the meeting. The most noteworthy was that the President entered the meeting hall, accompanied by Harin and Tiran, who have been accused in connection with the transaction, by his side and are laughing and exchanging ideas with them.
Chamara dances
The topic of the week was the Parate Law, which was discussed in the group meeting. Once Sarath Weerasekera raised the VFS topic the discussion heated up.
What is this problem? Now everyone is talking about this. People ask us too. We have no answer. It is said that there has been a big fraud. Tell us if this is true or not.’ When Sarath brought out the question, Harin started to answer it. But there was no sign that the MPs were satisfied with it. Sarath Weerasekhara and Madhura Withanage were continuously questioned on this. However, the issue started to heat up a bit when State Minister Chamara Sampath Dasanayake intervened. In general, Chamara was considered as Ranil’s closest friend in the last season. Chamara was a henchman for Ranil. However according to the news we have, it is said that he has not yet received an official car after the official car that was given to Chamara caught fire recently. Due to this, Chamara has been seen to be somewhat estranged from the government these days. The situation became clearer because Chamara started attacking the government with great anger based on this visa issue.
‘What the hell is this? We can’t go down the street. There are only three months left for the election.” The President realized that the news was not good when he took the mandate and moved to another topic to end the discussion. But after that, in a statement issued by the Presidential Media Unit, it was said that the cabinet has decided to revise the visa fees as before.
A political drama?
However, significantly after this meeting, a resignation letter under the letterhead of Harin was released on social media. According to the information received by the ‘inside politics’ column, it is said that the V.F.S. topic has been rising against the government. Hareen’s alleged resignation letter had come to the fore as a way to quell the opposition. However, it was confirmed that April 6 was the letter dated but the cabinet meeting was held on May 6th. However, although the letter was circulated on social media claiming to be Harin’s resignation letter, Harin later tweeted that he had not submitted such a letter.
The decision of the government to revise the visa fee was received by Sajith through a WhatsApp message of a minister. Sajith was at that time attending the meeting of the SJB MPs group. After seeing the WhatsApp message, Sajith informed the group of MPs that the government has now decided to revise the visa fees once again. But as planned on Tuesday V.F.S. group of SJB MPs decided to strongly question the government based on the deal. Kiriella said that he is well prepared for the debate and that he has found some contradictory statements made by Tiran before. Accordingly, Kiriella said that he is ready to prove to the parliament that Tiran had misled the parliament.
Notably despite such a controversial matter has popped up the silence of the JVP. The matter was also discussed in the SJB MPs group meeting, and steps were taken to assign Marikkar to raise it as an issue in Parliament.
In the end, amid all these upheavals, V.F.S. Company has completely withdrawn from the visa issuance process at Katunayake Airport.
Milinda surfaced
This time we are ready to reveal information regarding another twist that happened last week. It is about Milinda Moragoda, who is quite distant from the political scene at the moment. Milind Moragoda was initially considered as a great friend of Ranil. During the 2005 presidential election campaign, Milind was entrusted with the responsibility of handling all of Ranil’s international relations. Because of that, an unbreakable relationship was formed between Ranil and Milinda. Also, Milinda is a character who was present at many crucial events in the political history of this country. Once during Mahinda’s government, the COPE Committee started an investigation through the Central Bank regarding many fraudulent transactions that had taken place in Milind’s Mercantile Credit Company. Wijayadasa Rajapaksa who was the chairman of the COPE committee at that time. A wonderful incident happened when Wijayadasa was investigating the transactions of the Mercantile Credit Company for a long time. That is the 16 members of the UNP who were with Ranil joined the government along with Karu Jayasuriya. Notably that Milinda Moragoda, who was considered very close to Ranil, was among those 16 people.
Milinda, who became a minister, did a lot of work for Mahinda, and later took steps to enter the competition as Mahinda’s Colombo mayorship under the United People’s Freedom Alliance. But in that fight UNP candidate A.J.M. Muzammil defeated Milinda.
After that, Milinda, who was a bit away from the political scene, did a huge work through ‘viyathmaga’ to make Gota as Pohottuwa candidate in the 2019 presidential election. After Gota’s victory Milind told Gota that he wanted the post of High Commissioner of India. Gota too offered it to Milinda without thinking twice. Later, Milind informed Gota that he wanted the privileges given to a cabinet minister. When even the ministers protested, Gota gave those privileges to Milind through the cabinet.
Mr. Indrajith Kumaraswamy, the former Central Bank Governor, was a key person who had become Gota’s economic advisor at that time. Indrajith Kumaraswamy is a powerful figure in Milind’s Pathfinder company. Because of this, Milind was able to exert a great influence on Gota not only politically, but also economically.
However, Ranil, who became the president after Gota resigned from the presidency, sent Sagala to India while Milind was the Indian High Commissioner and started dealing with India through Sagala without Milinda. Later Ranil removed Milind from the post of Indian High Commissioner. Because of this, recently Milinda has been very quiet politically.
Basil is unhappy
However, the said Milind Moragoda was suddenly seen in a way that no one expected in the past week. It was during the fifth round of discussion between Ranil and Basil. Earlier in the discussion with Basil, a team including Ranil, Harin, Prasanna, Mahindananda was brought but this time Milind was brought instead. There is no doubt that when Basil saw Milinda’s, many problems like how Milind suddenly became friendly with Ranil, what was the deal between the two, how Milind was a representative in the discussion with Basil, etc. must have surfaced.
Why did Ranil really bring Milinda to this discussion? Many people think that Ranil has used a trick to make Basil dance to his tune through Milinda. Because at that time, Milinda had done a great deal to build a close relationship with India for Basil. There is no doubt that Ranil thinks that Basil will not be able to do what Milinda says. On the other hand, many think that another reason for bringing in Milinda is that Wijayadasa is currently in conflict with Ranil within the cabinet and the government. Wijayadasa is currently making plans to run as a candidate in the presidential election. During Mahinda’s government, it was Wijayadasama who worked to defeat Milinda through the COPE committee. Therefore, many people are of the opinion that Ranil has brought Milinda to the arena again to give Wijayadasa a shot.
Hold the general election
However, according to the news we have, Basil was quite unhappy about Milind’s participation in the discussion with Ranil. However, in this discussion, Basil once again pointed out to the president that the government can gain political advantage by holding the general election rather than holding the presidential election.
‘Neither you nor Pohottuwa can win this presidential election. Sajith has the advantage of this. That is why I have been saying since then that we should go for a general election before the presidential election. Not too long now. According to the constitution, if a general election is to be held, the parliament should be dissolved before May 30. If you do that, you can hold the general election. On the other hand, in the general election, we can tell the country that you are our presidential candidate.
However, as soon as this discussion was over, it was seen that one campaign was sent out in a way that was beneficial to Pohotuttuwa and from the President’s side in a way that was beneficial to the President. The propaganda sent by Basil said that the government is likely to be dissolved at the end of May.
Ranil’s propaganda said that during this discussion, Basil agreed to give him the presidential candidacy. It was said that Basil agreed to keep it unpublished until the last moment. It was further said in the campaign that it would not be announced until the last moment until the president could break someone from the SJB group.
However, according to the information we have, both these campaigns are false. In this discussion, Ranil has not agreed to Basil to hold a general election. This column has learned that Ranil is sending that propaganda as a political ploy.
What Basil said about Milinda
However, after some time, everyone came to know that Milinda had also participated in the Ranil-Basil discussion. Accordingly, when some of Basil’s friends called Basil and asked about it, Basil gave them a wonderful answer.
I don’t trust Milinda at all. When we had fallen down , I invited G.L. to form the bud and become its president. G.L. Without raising any question, accepted my invitation and accepted the position of president of Pohottuwa. After that, I first invited Milinda to be the treasurer of the party. But Milind avoided this. Later, after we got a big victory in the election by appointing another treasurer, Gota wanted to request Milinda to take a seat in the parliament from the national list. When Gota told me that, I flatly rejected it. I told Gota that I was not ready to give positions to those who were not with us during our difficult times. Since then Milinda is not very good with me. Milinda was also in the team that advised the fall of Gota’s government. It was because of the economic advice given to Gota by Indrajith Kumaraswamy works in Milind’s Pathfinder this country collapsed. Accordingly, if Ranil is thinking of twisting Basil through Milinda, we have to say that it is a wrong choice of Ranil.
Another discussion
However, after this discussion, another emergency discussion between Basil and Ranil was held last Thursday. Since Ranil had worked to introduce different faces in the ongoing discussions between Basil and Ranil, among the faces Ranil had introduced in this discussion were Nimal Siripala de Silva, Mahinda Amaraweera, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Vajira Abeywardena, Prasanna Ranatunga. Ranil had also invited Nimal Lanza to this discussion, but Lanza had rejected it, saying that he could not sit for the discussion with Basil.
In this discussion too, Basil has clearly indicated to the President that he should immediately dissolve the Parliament and go for a general election. When Basil said this, Prasanna Ranatungala and Mahindananda Aluthgamagela made various statements, but Prasanna and Mahindananda remained silent at this occasion. However, the President has stated that he has not yet made a final decision in this regard and will announce his decision by next June. According to the information we have, the President named the month of June knowing very well that a general election cannot be announced by that time. Because if a general election is held, the parliament should be dissolved at least before May 31.
Accordingly, after the failure of the discussion held on Thursday, Basil opened the election operation office held at the head office of Pohottuwa in Battaramulla on Friday. There, Basil gave some hint to the government and said that Pohottuwa is ready to join with anyone or separate from anyone to do good of the country.
