Duminda, Hirunika to safeguard SLFP!

It is has been decided to handover the mechanism of the ‘movement to safeguard the SLFP’, formed by former president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga to protect the SLFP from certain death at the hands of the Rajapaksas, to western provincial councilor Hirunika Premachandra who returned home on December 14 from Singapore and to former deputy education minister Duminda Dissanayake.

The reason for handing over this task to them is that both are presently in a state of inaction due to no duty being entrusted to them. As offspring of the late SLFP giants Berty Premalal Disssanayake and Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, they are to safeguard their paternal heritage and rally the dormant SLFPers across the country with new vigour.

Duminda and Hirunika will undertake the task from the elections office of common opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena at Thimbirigasyaya in Colombo 05.

However, this election office is presently in a totally chaotic situation, as all its rooms are being occupied by the sons and daughters of leading UNP and SLFP figures. The place looks to be anarchic, with space being allocated without any planning - three rooms for facebook updating and two rooms to run the websites etc. At least the common opposition candidate does not have a room of his own here.

From morning till night, it is frequented mostly by people from advertising agencies, who have made puppets out of the sons and daughters of leading UNP and SLFP figures. There is swindling of Rs. 01 million from each businessmen being brought by them, purportedly to fund newspaper advertisements. A full page advertisement in ‘Lankadeepa’ costs Rs. 475,000, but the racketeers charge Rs. 775,000 plus expenses for artwork. We are in the possession of all the information, but we would not publish them as it would adversely affect the campaign of the common opposition candidate. We demand an immediate halt to this swindling and to carry out activities at this office in a transparent manner by appointing a campaign manager and a campaign theme.