‘Support Govt at LG polls to expedite development’

by Uditha KUMARASINGHE

SLFP General Secretary and Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena has called upon the people to cast their votes for the Government and help further expedite the development drive in their areas.

The Government hopes to launch a new program to increase funds for local government institutions in keeping with the national level programs formulated by them.

When the number of members elected to these local bodies from the Government increases, it would facilitate the people in that local government area to get more financial allocations to develop their area, the Minister told the Sunday Observer.

The Minister said that the Government has also formulated a new program to develop the local government structure.

During the past four years, a great deal of development had taken place under the guidance of these local government institutions, now dissolved.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa was the only leader who made the biggest financial allocations to these local government institutions to carry out their regional development and infrastructure development activities.

According to the Minister, the UPFA has engaged in a very successful election campaign to woo more support of the voters towards the Government at the forthcoming polls.

President Rajapaksa has given much support to the UPFA election campaign by participating in district level meetings.

In addition, Ministers, organisers and provincial political leaders have also provided an effective contribution to our campaign.

The Opposition should conduct a successful election campaign to pose a challenge to the Government. However no such campaign

is evident on the part of the Opposition. The Opposition campaign has been only confined to television and press conferences, he said.

The Minister who categorically denied the allegations that the elections in some local government areas were postponed due to the Government’s fear of losing them, said that the Government cannot postpone elections in any local Government area.

The elections in certain local government areas have been postponed due to court orders while the Elections Commissioner has postponed elections in some areas due to difficulties encountered by him to conduct polls on account of the ongoing court cases. The Government decided to postpone local government polls in certain areas where the World Cup cricket matches are scheduled to be played.

When these World Cup matches are over, the dates will be fixed for the polls in these local government areas.

In a scenario where the Government can achieve an easy victory, there is no reason whatsoever to postpone the elections.