SLFP a party of the down-trodden - General Secretary

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has produced great leaders like the founder leader S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike who made sweeping changes in the country followed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike who led the party for 40 years. "It was their example we followed and I came to politics through the SLFP youth league and first became its President," said Mahaweli Development and Agriculture Minister and SLFP General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena.

Addressing the SLFP youth league convention in Galle yesterday, the Minister said his father was a poor farmer who had voted for the UNP though he did not take part in politics. "When he heard that his son was engaged in SLFP politics he urged me not to be in the SLFP but I was convinced that the SLFP was the party that the downtrodden people should turn to and though I had always heeded my father's advice on all matters I could not leave the SLFP," he said.

"Today I am a Minister and party General Secretary and we have a leader who not only leads the party but also the whole country. The leader of the country had set an example to others by the way he dresses and the way he conducts himself and others wish to follow his example but a weak leader could not do a thing like that. Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe goes abroad and says things detrimental to the country. He is a leader who follows leaders of other countries," the Minister said.