How many more committees would Speaker appoint?
What is MR’s game plan while he is in hiding?
Was it a secret message or a threat Ranil sent to Rajapakses?
The game played by Katagoda
The private member bill introduced by two ardent supporters of Basil Rajapakse, Jayatha Katagoda and Sanjeewa Edirimanna, has caused quite a stir in the country. According to the proposal, the subject minister should be given the authority to reconvene currently dissolved local bodies. Sanjeewa immediately seconded Katagoda’s proposal, and the opposition vows to seek legal redress.
The idea behind this proposal, as highlighted in our previous week’s ‘Inside Politics’ column, could be to keep active in politics the Pohottuwa local council members who are currently not functioning due to the dissolution of the terms of the council as the tenure of those councils is legally over. Pohottuwa is currently travelling the country organising party meetings, and it has been noted that the participation of former local councilors has been drastically reduced.
It is also noted that they rarely attend meetings held at the Batharamullmulla party headquarters. Many of them cite costs and transportation issues as reasons for not participating. The implementation of this proposal would bind the party to care for the local councilors and restore their power in the local bodies. Many people believe this is the reasoning behind Katagoda’s proposal.
The first attack was from S.B
However, as soon as this proposal came to the fore, Paffrel, an independent election monitoring group, took steps to file a fundamental rights petition before the Supreme Court. What’s more, this proposal received a strong attack from inside the bud, in a way that even Katagodala did not expect. The first attack was at the party’s press conference held at the Pohottu headquarters. The former minister S.B.Dissanayake said that neither the Pohottuwa nor the Pohottu chiefs were aware of such a proposal, and it is impossible to implement, and S.B. also said that it is not legal. He also said that if these former MPs want to come to power again, they should win an election to do so.
The second is from Susil
The second attack came from Minister of Education Susil Premajayantha, who is a powerful minister in Pohottuwa as well as in the government. Joining a program on a TV channel, Susil said that the proposal is completely against the law. Susil said that the minister in charge of local government already has the power to postpone the local government election by one year, and if the minister is given the power to postpone it further, it will be a violation of the people’s fundamental rights. Therefore, Susil clearly said that it cannot be done.
The third is from the Attorney General
The third attack on Katagoda’s proposal came from none other than the Attorney General. The day after the Katagoda made this proposal, Attorney General informed the Speaker that for the relevant proposal to be passed, it must be passed by a two-thirds special majority in Parliament, and moreover, it must be passed through a referendum. Accordingly, the proposal brought together by Katagoda and Sanjeeva Edirimanna to appease the former local government councilors of Pohottuwa is now seen to have lapsed. The other special incident here is that when the proposal brought by Katagodala was attacked in this way from within Pohottuwa, no one in Pohottuwa came forward to protect Katagodala. Accordingly, in the end, Katagoda and Sanjeeva had to come up with proposals to fulfill the wishes of the party leaders and face the same situation as being alone within the party.
Namal intervenes
Due to the ‘aragalaya’, Pohottuwa, which fell on all fours, has now started holding council meetings at the seat level to raise it upright. The keynote speaker these days is none other than Namal Rajapaksa, the crown prince of the Rajapaksa family. During Namal’s trip around the country, the lack of participation of the former local government members of Pohottuwa was clearly seen.
It is not that Namal does not know that these local government councilors who represent the village level, the ground level, are the only high ground that Pohottuwa has. That is why Namal has now started a new program to solve the problems that have arisen for these former MPs. Accordingly, Namal will talk to the governors and local government commissioners representing the areas where he is participating in the constituency council meetings and discuss with them the questions of these former MPs and give them answers as far as possible. Namal is trying to somehow maintain the strength of the party at the grassroots level through that.
Diana’s video
These days, the video clip has become one of the most talked about topics in the political field as well as among the common people. The reasons for this are the videos circulating on social media these days based on various monks. In the past, the audio tape released by the former minister Mr. Ranjan Ramanayake had caused great controversy in the political arena. After that, an audio tape in which Mr. Prasanna Ranatunga scolded a person with obscene words had also gained great popularity on social media.
Amidst all these audios, another audio came out last week. It is none other than the Minister of State for Tourism, Mrs. Diana Gamage. There a person makes a phone call to Mrs. Diana Gamage and questions her, and the angry state minister scolding the person using words such as , ‘You know.. Para Balla.. Know’ etc. However, after someone released this audio clip on social media networks, Diana has informed the relevant departments to immediately take steps to remove this audio clip from social media networks.
Chandrika is also fed-up of Welgama
Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike is currently in England. He went to England to visit her daughter and grandchildren. A political incident also affected Chandrika’s sudden departure to England. The leaders of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party had taken steps to remove her, from all positions of the party she held such as the mentor of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party which she held as the former leader of the party. Because of this, Mr. Kumara Welgama, who was very friendly with Chandrika, left the Sri Lankan Freedom Party and formed a new party called the ‘New Sri Lanka Freedom Party’. Welgama had also chose Chandrika to a key position there. He also built a new political alliance with former Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka.
However, complaints started pouring in from all quarters regarding Welgama’s activities. Some ministers continue to complain to Chandrika about some misdeeds being done by Welgama. The main accusation of these ministers was that at one time he spoke well of the government and voted in favor of the government, and at another time he criticized the government and spoke in an anti-government manner. Chandrika was very angry about this recently. Because of this, Chandrika finally decided to leave all positions in Welgama’s party. Accordingly, Chandrika, who has strongly criticized Welgama’s program, has left all positions in the party and has taken steps to go to London.
Harsha also understood now
In the recent past, the opposition has been promoting a great ideology in the country that the government’s domestic debt restructuring program will cause great damage to the employees’ provident fund and the employees’ trust funds. All the opposition parties had strongly pointed out that no matter what the government said, through the restructuring of the local debt, EPF, ETF. It is said that the people of the country are losing billions of rupees from the funds.
Although the opposition explained the facts to the country like this, Dr. Harsha de Silva, who is considered to be a liberal economic expert, took steps to explain the positive aspects of domestic debt restructuring to the country with a slightly different policy. At no point did Harsha move to criticize domestic debt restructuring. Apart from that, an opposition MP, Tamil National Alliance MP Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran had organized a discussion that in this regard at the Jetwing Hotel in Colombo, he was strongly criticized by the opposition MPs for taking the same position as the opinion presented by Central Bank Governor Harsha de Silva regarding the restructuring of domestic debt. We took steps to report in this column how not only Sumanthiran, Rauf Hakeem, but also Dr. Nishan de Mel, who is considered to be a well-known economic analyst, had strongly argued against Harsha’s statement.
The story told by Sajith is correct
However, even though several people including Harsha had taken such a stand, as the party leader, Sajith had firmly decided that the party as a party should protest against the government’s domestic debt restructuring program. It was Sajith’s position that there would be a huge loss to the funds. In the end, the general consensus of all was that Sajith’s stand on this topic was right, and it was clearly proved.
Accordingly, leaders like Harsha, Iran, Kabir, who were initially in favor of restructuring the domestic debt, have now been seen strongly criticizing the government’s domestic debt restructuring program. In particular, Harsha, Iran, and Kabir, the three economic experts at a press conference last Monday, took steps to strongly criticize the government’s domestic debt restructuring program. There, Harsha said that steps will be taken under a SJB government to change even the Employees’ Provident Fund Act. Accordingly, Harsha said that laws will be made so that the employees’ provident fund cannot be touched for 15 years.
Accordingly, many Sajba MPs have commented on this matter and said that Harshala, who said that this program was good, then, has now gone beyond the SJB MPs who criticized the program and has become its critics today.
Ranil’s journey to India
President Ranil Wickremesinghe is currently preparing to visit India for the first time after assuming the office of President. Usually, with the appointment of a new President or Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, an official invitation is received from India within two to three weeks, but this time the President had to wait for over a year to receive the invitation.
As we have reported several times in the past, a number of conditions to be fulfilled before the visit to India were given to the government in advance. Many media had reported that there were some projects among these conditions. It is not known whether the government had arranged to give two out of seven government-owned companies to an Indian company as a fulfillment of these conditions. Accordingly, the government has taken steps to give Litro Gas Company and Canville Company to the company called ‘Deloitte India’. However, Indian Foreign Secretary Mohan Vikram was also on a two-day visit to Sri Lanka last week to plan the President’s trip to India.
Trip to New York priority
After this visit to India, the president has put more weight on his visit to the US, which is scheduled to be held in September. During this American visit, the President is going to participate in the United Nations General Assembly Session in New York, and it is the President’s plan to somehow meet many of the state leaders who will be participating in the small meetings to be held during that session. These days, the president has put more weight on that.
After that, the President is scheduled to visit China in October. The news is that the President has high hopes for meeting Chinese investors during that visit and getting a large number of projects for Sri Lanka. In order to prepare the necessary background for that, the government has now decided to provide China with the opportunity to start a large oil refinery near Hambantota port.
Intermediaries in the transaction
A lot of special information has been revealed about the middlemen who intervened between the government and China to make this deal. It is known that a famous Rajapaksa son, who has intervened in business deals for the Rajapaksa family in the past, and another nephew related to the Rajapaksa family have intervened in this transaction. Generally, this Rajapakse family related nephew is known as a middleman involved in large-scale transactions. This nephew was involved in the coordination deal between the relevant Chinese companies and the government especially in the construction of Southern Expressway, Katunayake Expressway, Hambantota Port etc. projects under Chinese investment in the past. During the last Mahinda Rajapaksa government, this nephew had a lot of power in the government.
Accordingly, in addition to this relative of the Rajapaksa family, another prominent Rajapaksa son has also been involved in handing over the project of building an oil refinery at the Hambantota port premises to China. During Mahinda’s government, this Rajapaksa son was not involved in business transactions, but during Gota’s government, he was very actively involved as an intermediary in business transactions. Accordingly, it has been seen that the aforementioned nephew and this Rajapaksa son are engaged in a large-scale business transaction together.
What happened to Mahinda?
In this way, many people are questioning what has happened to Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the king of the Rajapaksa family, when Rajapaksa’s sons and nephews are doing business together. In general, Mahinda is considered as a sociable political leader who is always among the people, in temples, socializing with party members. But for the past few weeks, no incident or photo of Mahinda among people has come out. Mahinda was not present even during the last local debt restructuring vote held in Parliament. No one got to see Mahinda’s face at any other event. Accordingly, we found out that although Mahinda is quite ill, he is actively involved in discussions with his political friends at his Wijerama official residence.
The secret message from Ranil
Apart from this, another special information regarding Mahinda has also been reported to us. A few days ago, President Ranil Wickramasinghe had sent a strong message to Mahinda and the powerful members of Mahinda’s family. As of now, no information has been reported about what this extremely secret message was, but due to the events that followed, it is believed by many that it could be a powerful message. That is because Mahinda suddenly ‘disappeared’ after receiving that message. Many say that after this message from Ranil, Mahinda did not come out much. In addition to Mahinda, there is a suspicion that former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa have also received this message.
However, many people who went to meet him had told their friends that Mahinda was somewhat disappointed after receiving this message. They are of the opinion that the way Pohottuwa is working, the way the government is working, and the way certain monks are behaving have affected that frustration. However, after receiving the President’s message, they believe that this frustration has increased somewhat.
Chandima full time for SJB
Last week, Mr. Chandima Weerakkodi, a lawyer who was once a strongman in left-wing politics as well as in Sri Lankan politics and a pillar of power in Pohotuwa, became a full member of Samagi Jana Balawega. Moreover, he also got the appointment of Sajaba Habaraduwa Constituency Organizer from Sajith. Chandima is a nephew of the Dodangoda family who had huge connections with southern politics. Amarasiri Dodangoda is considered to be the strongest of the Dodangoda family.
He is the former Chief Minister of the South who built people’s power in the South to overthrow the UNP government that had been in place for 17 years. Amarasiri Dodangoda is considered to have even held the position of cabinet minister in the Sri Lankan government. Chandima Weerakkodi is a nephew of Amarasiri Dodangoda. He is also a lawyer and first started his politics with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Young Chandima, who then joined Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa in Pohottuwa, won every election he asked for. Later he also held the position of Cabinet Minister.
Disliked Pohottuwa family politics
But during the period of politics with Pohottuwa, the family politics within Pohottuwa, opening the door to corruption, waste, and its economic policies were not tolerated. Because of this, Chandima came out of Pohottu before anyone came out of Pohottu and worked as an independent member of parliament. Along with Chandimat, at that time, several senior members of Pohottuwa came out as independent MPs, but today, they have again been associated with Pohottuwa. Others can be seen working closely with the president. But Chandima along with the opposition raised his voice constantly against the anti-democratic program of the government and against the destruction done to the economy.
Later, Chandima took steps to work closely with the opposition leader Mr. Sajith Premadasa. Worked to provide active contribution to anti-government activities with Sahabaya. Last week, Chandima officially took over as the Habaraduwa Constituency Organizer together with SJB as a result of this.
An unexpected crowd
Accordingly, last week, Chandima took steps to organize a very elegant ceremony by turning his Habaraduwa home into a party office. Chandima took steps to invite Galle Sajaba stalwart Gayantha Karunathilaka and Sajaba seat organizers for that. In addition, Chandima also arranged to invite some of his closest party members. But just as Chandima was about to start the ceremony, he faced an unexpected problem.
Although Chandima had invited only a few people to participate in this event, when the event started, a large number of people had come to Chandima’s house. Among them, Chandima could see how there are old leftists as well as Sri Lankan Freedom Party members, Pohottuwa representatives, UNP party members and SJB party members. Due to the increase in the number of people, not everyone could hear the speech, so eventually Chandima went to a nearby electrical equipment rental company and even rented small loudspeakers needed for a meeting and conducted the meeting successfully.
Bankruptcy Committee
There is nothing wrong in saying that the Parliamentary Select Committee appointed by the speaker Mr. Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to look into the facts and persons that caused the country’s bankruptcy is currently in a crippled state. This situation has been caused by the fact that Pohottuwa, who declared the country bankrupt and has been accused of bringing the country to that state, was given the position of chairman of the selection committee and the opposition has already taken steps to withdraw from the selection committee after protesting the appointment of several members who have been accused.
First, Vijitha Herath, who was appointed as JVP representative, withdraw from this selection committee. Vijitha, who made a public statement 48 hours before naming the committee, stated that he would resign from this committee saying that the people who bankrupted the country could not be found in this committee and that this committee was appointed to whitewash Pohottuwa and its leaders. Moreover, Vijitha also forwarded the letter stating his resignation to the speaker. This shows the letter addressed to the Speaker by Vijitha Herath
Vijitha Hearth to speaker
“Speaker,
Parliament of Sri Lanka
Sri Jayawardenepura,
Kotte.
Mr. Speaker,
Resignation from the membership of the Special Committee to Investigate the Causes of Financial Insolvency and Report to Parliament
During the nomination of members for the above special committee, my name as a member of the opposition was also submitted as a member of the said special committee. However, it is no secret that the names proposed by the ruling party to this committee are controversial.
It is futile to expect that a committee consisting of the majority of the people who caused the financial bankruptcy of the country will examine the real reasons or make recommendations related to it. In this situation, it is meaningless to represent such a committee, so I hereby give notice that I resign from the membership of the said committee.
Vijita Herat
Member of Parliament
2023.07.10”
SJB too leaves
Although the JVP decided to withdraw from the committee that bankrupted the country in this way, the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawega did not take that decision at once. Even though SJB expressed their opinion against it from the time the relevant committee was announced by the speaker, SJB did not take steps to leave the committee suddenly without any alternative. Instead, the SJB seniors gathered under the leadership of Mr. Sajith Premadasa took steps to discuss at length what alternative measures should be taken for that. Everyone said with one voice that should not participate as it is like hearing from the thief’s mother.
Instead, it was the position of the seniors that a separate committee headed by the opposition leader should be appointed to find the people who bankrupted the country. The group was also of the opinion that since the speaker had already stated that the leader of the opposition is allowed to call any officer to the parliament and question them; it would be possible to succeed in this matter.
Accordingly, in the end, Sajith decided not to participate in the committee appointed by the Speaker to search for the people who bankrupted the country and to appoint a committee headed by representatives of the opposition led by SJB. First of all, the committee also decided to call union representatives to discuss the crisis in the health sector, which has led to great controversy these days. It was also decided to hold its first meeting on Thursday at 9.30 am at Parliamentary Committee Hall No. 8.
In addition to the leader of the opposition, many MPs representing the opposition attended the meeting held accordingly. Leaders of many trade unions representing the health sector were also present. The group discussed the current situation at length and decided that the government should pay attention to this matter and pressurize to rectify the situation.
A signal from a strong MP
It is no secret to the country that although President Ranil Wickremesinghe runs the government together with Pohottuwa, some people in Pohottuwa are deeply disappointed with the government’s work. In spite of being at the top with the government, there have been many incidents of secret dealings with the opposition by some of the ministers in Pohottuvwa in the past. We have also taken steps to present some of them to the readers through this column. This time we are going to tell in this column an example of another similar incident.
The basis for this was laid with a special message sent by a powerful member of the government to an opposition member during the parliamentary meeting held last week. Through that message, the powerful member of the government had informed possibility of meeting at the Parliament dining hall during lunch.
According to this message, the member of the opposition was also in the dining hall of the parliament at lunch time with the intention of knowing what the powerful member of the government was going to say. As per the message, the powerful member of the government arrived at the Parliament dining room on time took a plate of food and sat near the table where the member of the opposition was sitting, talking and laughing with the people around him.
Hit them alone
After that, the powerful member of the government, who started talking with the opposition member as usual, took steps to make a big accusation against the opposition.
‘Hey, what’s wrong, you don’t play the role of the opposition properly. Now see how many accusations our MPs have against ministers. But when you say them, you say it in general. All are accused to have stolen. This should not be done like that. Take the individual minister and hit him instead of hitting in general. We will give you the information of those few people. Let the name be openly said …’ was the message that the powerful member of this government told the member of the opposition.
Accordingly, the member of the opposition immediately reported the information given by this powerful member of the government to the seniors of his party. It was decided not to attack only a few people based on the information given by the strongman of the government, but to target all the ministers of the government and make many massive revelations in the future under the leadership of the opposition.