War hero on UPFA list

Upali Wijekone, former Personal Security Officer of late Major General Vijaya Wimalarathna, will contest the North Central Provincial Council Elections as an UPFA candidate, President’s Media sources said.

The disabled ‘War Hero’ Wijekone had been the only survivor in the bomb blast at Kayts Island in which Lt. General Denzil Kobbekaduwa

and Major General Vijaya Wimalarathna were killed in 1992. Wijekone too had lost his limbs in the blast.

At a meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees last Wednesday, the Ex-soldier Wijekone has said that he had taken this decision to come forward as a candidate, in order to add value and honour to the thousands of valiant ‘War Heroes’ who had sacrificed their lives and limbs for the security of their motherland.

Wijekone said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces had given the right leadership to defeat the terrorists, and that if the country had similar leaders in the past, terrorism would have been totally eradicated by now.

He added that he was fully confident of President Rajapaksa obtaining the maximum assistance from the ‘War Heroes’, in the battle with the LTTE. General Secretary of the SLFP Maithripala Sirisena also attended the meeting.