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by Ravi Ladduwahetty in Anuradhapura

A plot has been bared where UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has planned to hand over a separate State to the LTTE in the event of his party return into power, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga told the inaugural PA polls rally at Anuradhapura yesterday.

The LTTE also needs a weak leader like Ranil Wickremesinghe to rule the South so that they can control the North for a start and then take the whole country later, the President said addressing a mammoth crowd.

She threw an open challenge to the UNP leader to tell the country of an alleged pact with all the details within the next 24 hours. "Otherwise, Mr. Wickremesinghe has no moral right to continue his election campaign," she said.

The President said that she had information that Mr. Wickremesinghe was negotiating with the LTTE representatives Lawrence Thilagar and Thamil Chelvam with Dr. Jayalath Jayawardhana as a mediator in Singapore, two weeks before her assassination attempt in 1999.

Weeks before the 1999 Presidential poll, the LTTE was sending their boys on bicycles in the Wanni, Amapara and Trincomalee canvassing votes for Ranil Wickremesinghe, she said.

The President firmly asserted that she would under no circumstance act in a way that would lead to the division of the country.

She also reiterated her stand of the Government that it was always for a negotiated settlement of the national question.

Therefore, the December 5 polls will be an election which will eventually decide whether the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the country will be maintained or not, she said.

She regretted for having had to call for another general election within a span of one year, when the Government had a mandate to rule the country for six years. "It is all because some corrupt businessmen bought over 12 Government MPs and upset the Parliamentary equilibrium."

"The LTTE is aware that the PA will never give into their demands. That is why they have planned assassination plots on me, the Prime Minister and Anura Bandaranaike."

The President also appealed to the voters to give the PA a minimum of 128 seats so that the Government could implement the electoral reforms and the other changes that would bring stability to the country.

"The upcoming polls will also decide with whom I have to work for the next five years and it is upto the voters to elect a PA regime because I cannot work with the UNP and the 12 dissidents who have joined their side," she said.

She said that a businessman who has plundered Rs. 600 million from a state bank has appealed to Mr. S.B. Dissanayake when he was Deputy Minister of Finance to wave the loan. It is because I refused the request as the Finance Minister, that Mr. Dissanayake is abusing me in public.

There are also allegations of illegal land transactions concerning a plot of land 280 perches in extent, she said. She requested the public to inform her of other illegal transactions of other ministers and politicians so that she can take stringent action against the offenders.

She also pledged to bring in strict legislative enactments so that offenders in issues like these could be brought to book at the earliest.

"Despite there being 109 MPs even after SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem's removal and 12 dissidents crossing over, there were still 97 former MPs who are still remaining with the Government. There are 309 Provincial Councillors and over 2000 Pradeshiya Sabha members of the PA and not even 10 of them have decided to change their minds," she added.

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