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| Friday, 3 December 2004 |
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| First UPFA Budget that silenced Opposition Leader In the face of the current people-friendly budget the UNP's feeble fate has become crystal clear. The UPFA's maiden budget goes down in history as the first budget that dumbfounded the Opposition Leader, stated a joint media communique signed by UPFA Media Spokesmen Minister Mangala Samaraweera and UPFA MP Wimal Weerawansa. The release stated that the budget proposals adopted by a majority of 34 votes at the first reading on November 27 was opposed only by the LTTE controlled UNP, the Tamil Eelamist MPs and the two remaining Muslim Congress MPs, one who was Rauff Hakeem. It said: "The voting on the Budget speech clearly demonstrated whether it was the UPFA Government or the Opposition led by the UNP which was unstable. In the annals of Parliamentary history, it is customary for the Opposition Leader to express his views on the first reading of the budget, but on this occasion Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe did not participate nor expressed in Parliament any opinion on the budget. Thus the UPFA maiden budget goes down in history as the first budget that silenced the Leader of the Opposition. Meanwhile, the Tamil Eelamist MP R. Sambandan called for a break-up on the vote of expenditure under the President's Office when it was presented on November 30. Strangely enough, the UNP too opposed the vote of expenditure. If the vote had failed to win a majority on account of some misfortune on that occasion, the President's Office could not have had an allocation of funds to run the office. If the UPFA members have adopted the same principle when the Opposition Leader's vote came up for Parliamentary approval, the Opposition Leader's Office would not have had funds to run the office. But the UPFA as a responsible Government did not resort to that procedure. These developments clearly demonstrate the tragic status of the UNP under the present leadership. Those who have realised this fate of the UNP have started to leave the party as in the case of senior UNP stalwart Rohitha Bogollagama who pledges support to the UPFA while retaining the membership in the UNP," communique said. The joint communique emphasised the fact that a political party opposed to the forward march of humanitarianism and patriotism cannot survive as a political party and called upon Opposition Leader Ranil Wicremesinghe to act independently without becoming a puppet in the hands of external forces. |
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