by

Disna Mudalige

Former Speaker and UPFA MP-elect Chamal Rajapaksa is to join the National Unity Government.

Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, Rajapaksa said he would stand along with the position of the SLFP Party Chairman and President Maithripala Sirisena on forming a Unity Government.

He said he was willing to give the necessary strength required to form a government to carry out the functions of the state uninterruptedly. “Politics is an ideology and a discipline. We have to abide by the Party leader’s decision,” he noted.

Asked whether he would like to assume ministerial portfolios of the Unity Government, he said there had been no such discussion yet.

Asked his opinion on the decision of other Rajapaksa family members to sit in the Opposition, he said: “We have to go along with the decision of the party leadership if we are staying in the party. If not then they should leave the party. Those are the only two options left”.

UPFA MPs-elect Namal Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa have announced that they would sit in the Opposition even though the SLFP and the UNP signed an MoU to form a national unity government.

Namal Rajapaksa, after the meeting of the President with the SLFP MPs-elect on August 23 at the President’s official residence in Colombo, told the media that he has decided to remain in the Opposition stating that the President has given them the freedom to choose whether to join the government or not. Following the election defeat on August 17, Mahinda Rajapaksa also stated that he would remain as an Opposition MP.

The name of Chamal Rajapaksa had also been previously proposed for the post of Opposition Leader in new Parliament.

Courtesy:Daily News