{"id":35871,"date":"2014-12-07T16:15:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T21:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=35871"},"modified":"2014-12-07T16:58:38","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T21:58:38","slug":"entry-of-rajitha-senaratnenavin-dissanayake-wasantha-senanayake-and-hunais-farook-will-rejuvenate-the-unp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=35871","title":{"rendered":"Entry of Rajitha Senaratne, Navin Dissanayake, Wasantha Senanayake and Hunais Farook will Rejuvenate the UNP."},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

C.A.Chandraprema<\/strong><\/p>\n

That Navin Dissanayake defected to the opposition last week was hardly surprising. From the time Karu Jayasuriya went back to the UNP, Navin\u2019s days in the UPFA were more or less numbered. With a father-in-law who was the deputy leader and later the Chairman of the Leadership Council of the UNP, Navin would never have been completely trusted by the UPFA leadership. Yet, to his credit, it has to be said that Navin was one of the 17 UNP defectors of 2007 who managed to win a seat in parliament contesting on the UPFA ticket in 2010. <\/p>\n

\"UNP<\/a><\/p>\n

He came first among the UPFA\u2019s two Sinhala MPs in that Tamil majority district. (the top three slots in that district will always be taken by Tamil MPs under the proportional representation system.) That is not a bad achievement at all given the fact that when the 2010 parliamentary election was held, Navin\u2019s father-in-law was the deputy leader of the UNP. If he managed to swim upstream against the natural mistrust that the SLFP voter would have entertained about him, that displays certain abilities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The UNP effusively welcomed him back into the party. The present writer always held Gamini Dissanayake in high regard, and Gamini D never tried to hide the fact that he wanted to bring Navin into politics. <\/p>\n

In fact when this writer would go to see GD, he would get Navin to sit in at the discussions obviously to acclimatize Navin who was then barely out of his teens into the world of politics. <\/p>\n

When Navin wanted to leave the UNP in 2007, he asked the present writer for some advice. My advice to him was that his heritage and his roots are in the UNP and that he should think very carefully about moving out because he would in fact be moving out into alien territory. But by that time, the internal bickering in the UNP had taken such a toll on the young man that he probably didn\u2019t care about the possible consequences of leaving the UNP. Well as it turned out there were no real consequences as he did manage to get elected to parliament even on the SLFP ticket.<\/p>\n

It has also to be said that Navin has now returned to a UNP that is different to the one he left in 2007. The party leader is now more concerned about maintaining unity in the party than he was in the past. Furthermore, Sajith Premadasa has been appointed deputy leader. In fact Sajith was present when Navin made his first visit to Sirikotha last week and Sajith welcomed Navin with many warm words at the press conference that followed. Sajith drew attention to the fact that he had been appointed an electoral organizer for Hambantota for the first time by Gamini Dissanyake. <\/p>\n

Though the political rivalry between R.Premadasa and Gamini Dissanayake shook Sri Lanka to its foundations in the early 1990s, it was clear that Sajith wanted bygones to be bygones and for the second generation to make a fresh start. In fact two decades ago, it was Sajith and his mother Hema Premadasa who took the first steps in that direction by taking a leading role in Gamini\u2019s presidential election campaign and exhorting all supporters of Premadasa to vote for Gamini.<\/p>\n

Navin will of course have to watch out for his future electoral prospects in the Nuwara Eliya district. Gamini Dissanayake was held in high regard by the Tamil people but in the context of today\u2019s ethnic based voting pattern such considerations fall by the wayside. Tamils vote for Tamil candidates and the Sinhalese vote for Sinhala candidates. In 2010, not a single Sinhala MP was elected on the UNP list in the Nuwara Eliys district. <\/p>\n

Even veterans like K.K.Piyadasa and Renuka Herath got nowhere. In fact, ironically, Navin managed to get into parliament in 2010 only because he contested on the UPFA list which has two Sinhala MPs. Be that as it may, the return of Navin Dissanayake and Dr Rajitha Senaratne to the UNP fold is good for the UNP. So is the defection of Vanni district MP Hunais Farook and Wasantha Senanayake.<\/p>\n

Except for Rajitha these are all relatively young people and it would give the UNP some much needed rejuvenation. Hunais Farook entered parliament from Rishard Baithiudeen\u2019s party in 2010. He may not be able to get elected on the UNP ticket from the Vanni district next time as the only \u2018UNP\u2019 parliamentarian from that district is actually a member of the Muslim Congress. So you have to be either with Rishard or with Hakeem to stand any chance of becoming a Muslim MP from the Vanni district. <\/p>\n

Nevertheless Hunais is an educated Muslim who may be of help in shoring up the UNP\u2019s fast eroding Muslim base. The UNP will not get anywhere with the presidential election. But at least they have managed to get a few people who may be of help to this party in the future. Rajitha especially, will be a great boon as a platform speaker and TV debater for the UNP.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Sunday Island<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By C.A.Chandraprema That Navin Dissanayake defected to the opposition last week was hardly surprising. From the time Karu Jayasuriya went back to the UNP, Navin\u2019s days in the UPFA were more or less numbered. With a father-in-law who was the deputy leader and later the Chairman of the Leadership Council of the UNP, Navin would …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Entry of Rajitha Senaratne, Navin Dissanayake, Wasantha Senanayake and Hunais Farook will Rejuvenate the UNP.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35871"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35883,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35871\/revisions\/35883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}