“ Tissa, Tissa come this way!”

Tuesday, 9 December 2014 01:28 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

One General Secretary for another: President

A short-sighted decision by Tissa: Ranil

nRespectable resignation by UNP General Secretary: Anura Priyadarshana Yapa

nOur shame as political leaders to have kept fickle characters in our midst: Fonseka

In a tit-for-tat maneuver President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday managed to poach the main Opposition UNP’s General Secretary, Tissa Attanayake on nominations day. Together with Jayantha Ketagoda, a member of Sarath Fonseka’s Democratic Party, Attanayake was greeted at Temple Trees by a host of former UNP ministers and SLFP strongmen, including Nimal Siripala De Silva and Mahindananda Aluthgamage. The pair partook of lunch with the ministers and President Rajapaksa at the official residence following their defection.

“They took our general secretary, now the UNP General Secretary has come to us,” a buoyant President Rajapaksa told supporters outside the Elections Secretariat after he submitted nomination papers yesterday. Attanayake handed in his resignation to Party Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe last morning and joined President Rajapaksa in the afternoon, at Temple Trees. Hitting out at common candidate Maithripala Sirisena, Attanayake said in his letter that the former SLFP Minister had failed to fulfill a single condition under which the UNP had agreed to give him the nomination for the presidency. Attanayake said the decision had been to agree to Sirisena’s candidacy after he crosses over with 20 Government MPs, pledges to transfer power to a prime minister and a cabinet of ministers within 24 hours and abolish the presidency. In his letter, the former UNP General Secretary said that it was clear that UNP members, who would work the hardest to get Sirisena elected, would be left high and dry by the common candidate. Attanayake told Wickremesinghe that ever since he had effected the reunification of the UNP by bringing Wickremesinghe and Premadasa together, there had been slurs against him. Attanayake accused the Malik-Ravi-Mangala clique of having run a campaign against him. “Under these circumstances I can no longer in good conscience remain General Secretary of the party,” he said in his letter. Attanayake was instrumental in striking the deal with Wickremesinghe to bring Sajith Premadasa back as the UNP Deputy Leader a few months ago. An emotional Attanayake told UNP organisers at Sirikotha two weeks ago, that he would never leave the UNP for money and that rumours about his defection were untrue. UNP National Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe told journalists he had refused to accept Attanayake’s letter of resignation. “He has made a short-sighted decision, that is all I have to say about it,” Wickremesinghe said at his office in Colombo yesterday. Shortly afterwards he announced that UNP Chairman Kabir Hashim would be appointed UNP General Secretary, following Attanayake’s departure from the party. SLFP General Secretary Anura Priyadharshana Yapa who replaced Sirisena said Attanayake had quit the UNP in a dignified way. He had resigned from his post as General Secretary before he left, Yapa explained. “It was a respectable way to leave and a respectable way to come to the Government. Unlike our former General Secretary who just up and quit,” he charged. Addressing a common opposition press briefing in Colombo yesterday, Democratic Party Chairman Sarath Fonseka noted that politically fickle characters shamed their leaders. “We should be ashamed as political leaders to have kept such people in our midst,” he noted.