Meeting between Sri Lanka President and Rajapaksa is to remove PM: Dilan Perera
Wednesday, 6 May 2015 01:36
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The meeting between Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is aimed at removing current Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) media spokesperson State Minister Dilan Perera said.
Confirming that the meeting between President Sirisena and Rajapaksa would take place in Colombo on Wednesday as announced, the SLFP spokesperson said the United National Party (UNP) was nervous about the meeting since the decision to be taken at the meeting would lead to the dismissal of Ranil Wickremesinghe as PM.
Speaking to BBC Sandeshaya, State Minister Dilan Perera said there would be no conditions for the meeting, but one, and that was to send the Prime Minister “home.”
“This is a conditionals meeting, only condition is to send Ranil Wickremesinghe home,” Perera told the BBC.
State Minister Dilan Perera asserted that nobody could stop the move to dismiss Wickremesinghe. He said the people joined in the May Day procession with slogans saying that they wanted a Maithri-Mahinda Government.
As such Perera said that he along with Minister Mahinda Amaraweera and Lasantha Alagiyawanna met President Sirisena and called him to grant an appointment with Mahinda Rajapaksa as soon as possible.
Accordingly, the meeting has been arranged in Colombo on Wednesday, 6 May. But Minister Dilan Perera said that the UNP was disturbed by this news.
Speaking further SLFP Media Spokesperson said that there were no factions in SLFP and all were in the same party.
“This is an internal meeting of the party. When the 19th Amendment was brought the UNP supporters thought our party will split. All SLFP MPs want to send Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe home,” he said.
However, the former President’s Media Spokesman Rohan Welivita has said that Rajapaksa was not made aware of a meeting between him and President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday.
He has also said that this could be a deliberate attempt to portray Rajapaksa as the one who backed off from such a meeting, if it was not held.
Speaking about the general elections State Minister Perera said while the UNP said that the elections would be held under the existing system, the SLFP insisted that the proposed electoral system should be used after its passage for elections.
Meanwhile, United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) MP Gamini Lokuge, a supporter of Mahinda Rajapaksa, has told local media that Rajapaksa opposes a national government and wants the former ruling party to conduct a separate campaign.
He has requested that his ‘faction’ be given a quota of nominations from the UPFA in the forthcoming elections as a prerequisite for talks with President Maithripala Sirisena, Asian Mirror reported quoting highly placed sources.
