Basil Rajapaksa newest MP

Uditha Kumarasinghe, Ranil Manatunga and Irangika Range

KOTTE: Senior Advisior to the President Basil Rohana Rajapaksa was sworn in as a Member of Parliament beffore Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara yesterday.

While the new MP took oaths before the Speaker amidst applause from the Government chambers, Opposition Parliamentarians stage a protest holding placards.

Rajapaksa who arrived in Parliament last morning was welcomed by Labour Minister Mervyn Silva following which he received the blessings of the Maha Sangha at the Presidents Co-ordinating Office in Parliament.

The new MP who was escorted to his seat by the seargant-at-arms was greeted by all Ministers and Government MPs present in the House.

Rajapaksa, who has over 40 years experience in politics, spearheads the Jathika Saviya-Gama Neguma programme under which 14,000 villages will be developed.

He played a pivotal role in the election campaign of 1970 to bring his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa to Parliament.

He was also actively involved in the SLFP campaign for the 1976 by-election for Mulkirigala, following the demise of George Rajapaksa. The candidate was Lakshman Rajapaksa. He won the by-election.

Basil Rajapaksa contested the 1977 General Election from the Mulkirigala seat, losing by a narrow margin. He then strove to re-organise the party which suffered a heavy defeat at the polls. He established youth branches of the party around the country. In appreciation of his efforts, the party elected him as a deputy secretary in April 1980.

At the next election, held in 1989, he handled the polls campaign for his brothers Mahinda and Chamal, who emerged victorious. In 1994, he played a leading role in securing victory for the People’s Alliance at the Southern Provincial Council election, the precursor for the victory at the General Election.

This was a decisive election in recent times and Basil Rajapaksa worked hard behind the scenes to ensure the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa (highest number of preference votes in Hambantota district), Chamal Rajapaksa, Nirupama Rajapaksa and Mahinda Amaraweera, among others.

He rendered a yeoman service in the South to ensure the victory of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga at the 1999 Presidential Elections. He worked tirelessly to ensure the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa at the polls held in 2000, 2001 and 2004 and subsequently at the November 2005 Presidential Election for which he brought together all patriotic forces.

Basil Rajapaksa is the eighth in the Rajapaksa lineage, from D.M. Rajapaksa in 1936, to enter Parliament.