Highways,Transport and Mass Media Minister Dr.Bandula Gunawardhana said that whatever people say it was Basil Rajapaksa who created a new party by combining with Mahinda Sulanga programme to rebuild the party after the first defeat of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
He was addressing a public meeting organized by PS member Saman Kumara held at Korathota Junction in Kaduwela.
Therefore, he said that Professor G.L.Peiris continued to serve as the chairman of SLPP as a leader acceptable to the country.
He further said:“Professor G.L.Peiris continued to work as a senior minister in the Cabinet during Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency. He also served as the chairman of the Cabinet Sub-Committee appointed to select a foreign expert agency that could recover the country from the foreign debt crisis.
He contributed to the selection of institutions such as Lazard and Clifford Chance in France. His house was not damaged due to the struggle. But because of the international advice he received or for some other reason, while electing a president in the parliament, he believed that Dullas Alahapperuma should be the president in order to save the country in a very serious situation.
The professor came to the conclusion that Sajith Premadasa should be the Prime Minister under Alahapperuma Presidency. Before the struggle, Nalaka Godahewa was Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s chief economic advisor. He was the SLPP official economic theorist.
He was the one who led all the discussions, conferences and meetings of the SLPP economic agenda. Therefore, except for the education part of the economic programme of President Rajapaksa, everything else was completely prepared by Nalaka Godahewa and Jagath Wellawatta.
Since I did not agree with many parts of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s manifesto, especially the education part, Professor Lamawansa of Peradeniya University and Janitha Liyanage of Kelaniya University came to my house and added amendments to the education part.
Alahapperuma started his reign as Education Minister under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government with great happiness.Now Sajith Premadasa has assigned an extraordinary amount of responsibility to all of them and he says that he has a capable team to govern the country.
According to political sources, if the talents of our friends are properly evaluated and if Premadasa becomes president, after the parliamentary election, GL Peiris has been promised Foreign Affairs portfolio, Alahapperuma, Education and Culture and Godahewa, Minister of Finance.
Due to these promises of Sajith Premadasa, Susantha Punchinilame, a close politician of Basil Rajapaksa, Lakshman Wasantha Perera, who was a powerful minister of Matale district in the Mahinda Rajapaksa governments, and several other SLPP members have said that they will join the SJB after the 18th.
Due to this, the SJB political arena, which was an empty field, has been filled by SLPP leaders. Meanwhile, people like Dr.Harsha de Silva, Kabir Hashim and Eran Wickremaratne, who were the stalwarts of SJB have become spectators”.
The post Sajith’s so-called talented team are those who defected from SLPP first – Minister Dr. Bandula appeared first on DailyNews.