UNP dreaming of regaining power – Patali Champika

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

Technology, Research and Atomic Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said the UNP leader is in a dream world while Western countries are trying to dictate terms to Sri Lanka in the hope that the Government could be toppled using external forces so that they could come to power.

However, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s strategy has been rejected by the UNPers. Hence the UNP has been reduced to a 20 percent party now.

The UNP’s problem is not the leadership, but the policy it adopts, completely anti-Sri Lankan which provokes and incites separatists and fundamentalists against the society. This is why it gets defeated all the time. The UNP strategy will be defeated this time too, the Minister told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

Commenting on the UNP’s claim that the Geneva human rights issues is a smokescreen by the Government to dilute the burning issues in the country, Minister Ranawaka said this is a very unfortunate situation.

When the Kashmir issue was raised at the UN Human Rights Commission against India in 1991, the then Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao sent the Opposition Leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Geneva to submit proposals on behalf of India. It was their Opposition Leader who represented India, he said.

When anti-Sinhala riots broke out in India in 2013, India sent its Opposition Leader Sushma Suwaraj to Sri Lanka.

Can our Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe be our leader in Geneva on behalf of Sri Lanka? Can he deliver on behalf of our heroic soldiers and our country? Wickremesinghe and his cohorts betrayed the country in 2002. Fortunately, our people thwarted the traitorous campaign, he said.

The Minister said, that the UNP is following Ahelepola Nilame. Ahelepola Nilame felt that he could dislodge King Rajasinghe and become king with the help of Britain’s support. He even finally lost his life and family and we lost our country too.