{"id":54759,"date":"2017-08-22T16:29:22","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T20:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=54759"},"modified":"2017-08-22T16:29:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T20:29:50","slug":"unp-working-committee-requests-president-to-remove-wijeyadasa-rajapakshe-from-cabinet-but-no-response-from-sirisena-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=54759","title":{"rendered":"UNP Working Committee Requests President to Remove Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe From Cabinet But No Response from Sirisena so far."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>by Zacki Jabbar<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The UNP Working Committee yesterday requested President Maithripala Sirisena to remove Justice and Buddha Sasana Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe from his ministerial positions as he had failed to show cause for violating collective Cabinet responsibility by publicly criticising the Hambantota Port Agreement with China after having endorsed it at a recent Cabinet meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Political sources said that the request had been a sequel to UNP leader and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s explanation to President Sirisena at an emergency meeting between the two late Monday night. The PM told the President that Wijeyadasa had not met the August 21 deadline given to him by the UNP, to explain his conduct.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Although the Justice Minister had not answered the UNP\u2019s show cause notice, he had publicly vowed not to relinquish his portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>The President had not responded officially to the UNP Working Committees decision at the time this edition went to press.<\/p>\n<p>Wijeyadasa has also been accused publicly by several UNP Ministers and MPs of neglect of duty while around 75 corruption and other criminal cases against former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and some members of his government were stuck at the Attorney General\u2019s Department for nearly two years, even though investigations had been completed by the Criminal Investigations Department, Bribery or Corruption Commission and Financial Crimes Investigation Division.<\/p>\n<p>A suggestion to allow Wijeyadasa to continue as Buddhasasana Minister had not been taken up since he had not bothered to reply the show cause notice and also due to his unrelenting attitude and continued public criticism of the UNP, the sources revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The Justice Minister said recently that both the UNP and SLFP had failed the people and a third force led by Buddhist monks was necessary &#8220;to get the country out of the mess it was in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:The Island<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton54759\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D54759&amp;text=UNP%20Working%20Committee%20Requests%20President%20to%20Remove%20Wijeyadasa%20Rajapakshe%20From%20Cabinet%20But%20No%20Response%20from...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Zacki Jabbar The UNP Working Committee yesterday requested President Maithripala Sirisena to remove Justice and Buddha Sasana Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe from his ministerial positions as he had failed to show cause for violating collective Cabinet responsibility by publicly criticising the Hambantota Port Agreement with China after having endorsed it at a recent Cabinet meeting. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=54759\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;UNP Working Committee Requests President to Remove Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe From Cabinet But No Response from Sirisena so far.&rsquo; &raquo;<\/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\/54759"}],"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=54759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54761,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54759\/revisions\/54761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}