{"id":41992,"date":"2015-07-04T19:55:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T23:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=41992"},"modified":"2015-07-04T19:57:48","modified_gmt":"2015-07-04T23:57:48","slug":"maithripala-keeps-away-from-birthday-celebration-for-chandrika-to-avoid-her-and-ranil-after-giving-nomination-to-mahinda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=41992","title":{"rendered":"After Giving Nomination to Mahinda , Maithripala Keeps away from Birthday Celebration for Chandrika to Avoid her and Ranil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six months ago they were political arch enemies. Like the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows. So it was.<\/p>\n

Last Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena agreed to allow his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa to contest the August 17 parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

Now, they appear to be not only chummy, but concerned of each other.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the official announcement of Rajapaksa\u2019s candidature, UPFA leaders, with the exception of Sirisena, met on Friday night at the official residence of Western Provincial Council Chief Minister Prasanna Ranatunga. It will be recalled that on an earlier occasion, it was he who floated the idea if the leadership of the SLFP itself should be called into question.<\/p>\n

For moments the gathering took a formal air. They adopted a unanimous resolution thanking UPFA and SLFP leader President Maithripala Sirisena for nominating Rajapaksa as a candidate. They resolved that no statements detrimental to him (President Sirisena) should be made by any member of the Alliance. Then the mood took a festive air.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At the same time, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who had earlier believed that Rajapaksa might not get together with Sirisena, and in fact, repeatedly assured accordingly by Sirisena himself, was at a dinner at the official residence of Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera at Colombo\u2019s Stanmore Crescent off Bauddhaloka Mawatha.<\/p>\n

The guest of honour at the event was to be President Maithripala Sirisena. He had confirmed his presence. When he was getting late, a call was made to his residence at Wijerama Mawatha to check. An aide said Mr. Sirisena had retired to bed early that day. He was having a back ache, the aide had said.<\/p>\n

Samaraweera was hosting and toasting former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who had turned 70 on June 29. Among others present were Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, UNP Chairman Malik Samarawickrema, Minister Arjuna Ranatunga, Pathma Maharajah and Mano Tittawala.<\/p>\n

Ms. Kumaratunga did not hide her feelings about Sirisena agreeing to Rajapaksa\u2019s candidature earlier in the day. She was critical and opined that the SLFPers should defeat Rajapaksa. President Sirisena was clearly in no mood to sup that night with Ms. Kumaratunga \u2014 or his Prime Minister, who had given the septuagenarian birthday girl a gift and made a hurried exit for another function.<\/p>\n

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

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Six months ago they were political arch enemies. Like the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows. So it was. Last Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena agreed to allow his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa to contest the August 17 parliamentary elections. Now, they appear to be not only chummy, but concerned of each other. After the official announcement …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘After Giving Nomination to Mahinda , Maithripala Keeps away from Birthday Celebration for Chandrika to Avoid her and Ranil’ »<\/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\/41992"}],"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=41992"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41994,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41992\/revisions\/41994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}