'Crab symbol more appropriate for Ranil'

by Anura Maitipe

The change of the UNP symbol was not the answer for the defeat of the UNP during the past seventeen elections and there is no point in treating a patient's leg when the cause of disease was in the head, SLFP General Secretary Maithreepala Sirisena told the Sunday Observer.

It was very sad to hear that the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe under the influence of the newly formed alliance tried to change the symbol of the party by sending its 48-year-old elephant on compulsory retirement to the newly found jungle, "Thoppigala" in the East. I urged him not to isolate the innocent elephant in Thoppigala and to hand it over to the Pinnawala elephant orphanage, he said.

The elephant symbol of the UNP was introduced by the founder member of the party, the late D. S. Senanayake. Earlier leaders of the UNP such as Sir John Kotelawale, Dudly Senanayake, J. R. Jayewardene and R. Premadasa ascended to the throne riding on the elephant's back with a green flag.

But Mr. Wickremesinghe failed to make use of this elephant to reach the top most post in the country, he said. An appropriate symbol for Mr. Wickremesinghe was a crab and certainly not the elephant.

The crab usually moved across the right direction towards the losing end by looking at the victory post, he said.