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| Thursday, 1 April 2004 |
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| On interview with Lankadeepa: Vasantha Senanayake writes to Rukman "On 18th March 2004, I wrote to the Daily News giving my reason for supporting the incumbent President at the forthcoming General Elections. I did that as an individual, not as a card-carrying member of any Political Party. In that letter I took extra precautions not to make any reference to you, since I believed you to be an insignificant cog in the UNP machinery. It was therefore surprising to read of the views you had expressed in the Lankadeepa pertaining to my decision to support the President and her Party at this general elections, a privilege and a right that I will exercise without any fear of reprisal from any quarter. I wish to reiterate I am not a card-carrying member of any Political Party, and I will act in accordance with my convictions and conscience. You state in this interview, either through malice, ignorance, wilful blindness or even a lethal cocktail of all of the above, that had I received nominations from the UNP, that I would have worn a green shirt and gone round Polonnaruwa District praising the Prime Minister. I respectfully submit that this is all conjecture on your part, and wish to state that had I received nominations from whatever party, I would have gone before the people on the merits of the work I have already done as a dedicated philantrhorpist and a social worker. It is alien for me to act as a performing monkey at the whims and fancies of his Lord and master! You are not wrong however, in judging me by your own personal standards, as you clearly do not know any better. Further on the question of nominations, I had never asked for such, for the forthcoming elections but rather had applied long before dissolution of Parliament to contest the Provincial Council, that too, on the request of the party. Subsequently, when Parliament was dissolved, I made a repetition of a request I had made for well over a year, that is, to urgently issue a suitable agricultural policy, in line with that of D.S. Senanayake's but which would suit modern times. The party Chairman assured me that this would be done. When no such policy was even considered, and the UPFA had put out what I considered a very apt policy, I decided to pledge my support to them and made arrangements to meet the President at the residence of Pandu Bandaranaike, the PA organizer for Gampaha. I did not want to do this surreptitiously, and wanted to leave the UNP amicably. At this stage, I promptly informed the very same party Chairman, who not only told me a superb agricultural policy was to be launched shortly, but also, that due to my overwhelming popularity in Polonnaruwa District, the UNF wanted me to lead that District to victory. It was only when I realized like everything else promised by the UNF, that this too was a fabrication, only aimed at keeping me from joining the President, that I was compelled to speak on the political platform. I can still say that I have acted within my conscience. On the contrary, look at what you, yourself have done during your past political career. After having been "kicked out" of the UNP, on disciplinary grounds, by the then leader J.R. Jayewardene, you formed the "Dudley Peramuna" and when that did not get you the desired result, you formed another Political Party, namely the ELJP, and was once again emphatically rejected by the people, in spite of you having used the names and photographs of our illustrious forefathers in your poster campaign to further your personal ambitions. What had you to say about the UNP and its leader, then? In order to refresh your memory, I will enumerate some of the remarks attributed to you that appeared in the local newspapers. One of these articles is titled "UNP beyond resurrection" was an interview that was given by you to The Island newspaper and indeed the things you mention are most enlightening. "I fail to see any points of contact between the present government and the past UNP regimes either economically or politically." "Previous UNP Governments were based on a mixed economy". "We always knew the party is being run by two or three people. Yet we believed that some time or other we can resurrect this party. A wave of corruption has been unleashed in this country. Corruption has become a way of life today. In this light I think the party is beyond resurrection." Enlighten me dear, Rukman as to how you sit together with Minister Thondaman, after making the following observation in your aforementioned interview in the ELJP days. "We opposed granting voting rights to Indian plantation workers. This has completely eroded the political rights of the Kandyan Peasantry. The entire Nuwara Eliya District will be under the command of this Indian population." In a Sinhala article titled (translated) "D.S's principles totally destroyed" you state how your grandfather's vision is totally absent in the UNP. In another Sinhala article titled (translated) "UNP then and now" you very amply illustrated the irreconcilable differences then and now. These are not assumptions. These are stubborn facts. These are only few of the remarks you had made about the UNP and it's leader. These are facts that appeared in Black and White. You may remember that after almost twenty years in the wilderness, it was President R. Premadasa's compassion towards you which once again paved the way for you to creep back into UNP. What did you do thereafter? Who was the UNP Member of Parliament, who joined hands with Dr. Sarath Amunugama in an unsuccessful attempt to break up the then UNP Parliamentary Group by crossing over to the PA? We are aware of a certain MP, who in the absence of his Party Leader, who was in Norway at that time, approached the President of Sri Lanka with the hope of being made the Prime Minister, but whose actions were thwarted by the timely intervention of Anura Bandaranaike (then a member of the UNP) who summoned the Party Leader back to Sri Lanka. Having all these happenings in the background, I hasten to say that the interview given by you to the Lankadeepa particularly the reference to me, can and may be likened to the actions of a con artist who having slept with the wife of another, is now looking to accuse others of adultery, only to cover up his own fornication. This type of double talk can be expected only from one who is not only wallowing in the mud, but one who has already devoured the yams or the bulbs that gave rise to the two Unique Blooms that you so aptly describe in your interview. Furthermore, your reference to the relationship between Prince Siddhartha and Devidatta in this context is in extreme bad taste. As a Buddhist, I take strong exception to your trying to compare a very noble and revered personality, such as Prince Siddhartha to the likes of Ranil or were you by chance seeing yourself as the most revered Prince Siddhartha in this context? You have already desecrated the names of our forefathers is that not enough? |
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