SB confirms UNP plight - Jeyaraj

Nadira Gunatilleke and Rajmi Manatunga

Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle said if S. B. Dissanayake is to be believed the UNP will be defeated if an election is held at present.

According to a news item posted on several web sites including Lanka Truth, UNP National Organiser S. B. Dissanayake has said that UNP will definitely lose if an election is held at present, Fernandopulle revealed adding that he is thankful to Dissanayake for stating a reality.

Addressing the weekly press briefing held at the Government Information Department Auditorium yesterday, Minister Fernandopulle said that Dissanayake had also stated that the UNP will never be able to win an election without taking back the 17 MPs who joined the Government. He (Dissanayake) had also stated that the UNP should organise itself at the grassroots in order to win an election.

“We will never dissolve the Parliament even if UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake lies in protest on the road. The Government is not ready to dissolve Parliament responding to threats. In 1971 the Parliament was not dissolved even when there were countrywide Sathyagraha campaigns and numerous protests against the Government”, Minister Fernandopulle said.

The Opposition Leader has ordered a certain private media institution to sack two of their journalists because they had not given adequate publicity to the UNP according to him. Now the owner of the same private media institution has taken the task of giving publicity to the UNP himself. It is the Opposition Leader who violates media freedom. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has never done so.

A story is being circulated that there are 100 complaints against Minister Mervyn Silva in order to remove him from the Gampaha district. But there is not even a single complaint against him.It is Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi that the people want removed, not Mervyn Silva. It seems that the media campaign against Malaka Silva, the son of Minister Mervyn Silva has gone too far.

Malaka was not the first person who stayed at the Merchant ward and private hospitals. There is a long list of persons who did the same thing when they were remanded. Boodhi Ranasinghe, Thilanga Sumathipala and several others followed this. Attacking a single person beyond the limit is unacceptable and not ethical.

Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said that using some media institutions owned by his family the Opposition Leader is now trying to establish a notion that only two families can do politics in Sri Lanka.

Construction and Engineering Services Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne said that the only politician left in the UNP is S. B. Dissanayake because anyone can become an MP or a Minister but few can become politicians. S.B. is a good student of politics, a good analyst of the passing scene. Now he tells that the UNP cannot win without the 17 MPs who joined the Government.