Karu J. will be UNP leader after budget - Rajitha

Rasika Somarathna

The UNP (D) Group yesterday predicted a power change within the UNP after the forthcoming budget, with another batch of six to eight prominent MPs already in line to join either UNP(D) or the Government directly.

Holding that a victory the UNP (D) was a victory for the UNP, Minister Rajitha Senaratne said there would be an exodus from the UNP and added they (D-group) would grab power within the party after the budget, with heir apparent to the UNP Minister Karu Jayasuriya installed as leader.

Asserting that the UNP(D) would never divert from the policy of being within the UNP Dr. Senarathe said that their fight was to rid the party from a one man dictatorship.

The Ranil-Mangala alliance claims of defeating the forthcoming budget has become mere rhetoric, the Minister said while pointing out that Ranil Wickremesinghe himself had let the cat out of the bag in a public rally on wednesday, by stating that they would launch a street protest against the Government from January onwards.

Minister Senaratne claimed that the UNP leader had conducted a public opinion poll through a private research organisation recently by spending Rs. 23 million and had found out that the Government was still more popular than the Opposition.

The Minister also added that despite UNP claims the international community was still behind the Government which was demonstrated recently with the receipt of the HSBC loan.

He also pointed out that the UNP had failed to condemn the recent Anuradhapura attack while the whole world did so .”In fact they have been saying that a higher number of aircraft had been destroyed even going beyond LTTE statistics”, the Minister said.