Sirisena reconstitutes SLFP Central Committee

Tuesday, 18 August 2015 02:11 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Even as vote-counting commenced after the close of polls yesterday, President Maithripala Sirisena continued his blitzkrieg campaign to wrest control of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party yesterday, sacking 13 members of its 55-member Central Committee.

Fresh appointments have been made to fill the vacancies, sources said, with most of them likely to be staunch supporters of President Sirisena within the SLFP.

The appointments are reported to have been made by the party’s new acting General Secretary Duminda Dissanayake.

Among those unceremoniously sacked from the party’s decision making body were former Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne and SLFP strongman Janaka Bandara Tennakoon, John Seneviratne and sacked General Secretaries Anura Priyadarshana Yapa and Susil Premajayantha, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the Colombo District Court today ordered that summons be served on sacked SLFP and UPFA general secretaries Yapa and Premajayantha, when the case filed by Dissnayake and new UPFA General Secretary Wishva Warnapala were taken up today.

Court ordered that the summons be pasted on the doors of their residence, since the pair were refusing to accept notice of the enjoining orders issued by the Court last Friday, barring Yapa and Premajayantha from interfering with the duties of Dissanayake and Warnapala. (DB)