{"id":77459,"date":"2022-05-10T00:18:29","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T04:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=77459"},"modified":"2022-05-10T23:04:59","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T03:04:59","slug":"my-father-is-safehe-is-at-a-safe-locationand-he-is-communicating-with-the-family-there-are-a-lot-of-rumours-that-we-are-going-to-leave-we-will-not-leave-the-country-we-will-always-stand-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=77459","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMy father is safe,he is at a safe location,and he is communicating with the family.There are a lot of rumours that we are going to leave. We will not leave the country.We will always stand by our people\u201d  says  Namal Rajapaksa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Mahinda Raja-paksa, who resigned as prime minister on Monday, will not flee the country, his son Namal Rajapaksa told AFP on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 76-year-old heads a political clan whose hold on power has been shaken by months of blackouts and shortages in the island nation, which is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948. <\/p>\n<p>Mahinda had to be evacuated by the military from his official residence on Monday night after it was besieged by an angry crowd. But his son Namal, himself once touted as a future national leader, said the Rajapaksa family had no plans to leave Sri Lanka despite weeks of protests demanding they relinquish power. <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of rumours that we are going to leave. We will not leave the country,\u201d he said, describing the surge of national anger against his family as a \u201cbad patch\u201d. He added that Mahinda would not step down as a lawmaker and wanted to play an active role in choosing his successor.Mahinda was taken to an undisclosed location after protesters on Monday night breached the compound fence at Temple Trees, his official residence in the capital Colombo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy father is safe, he is at a safe location, and he is communicating with the family,\u201d said Namal, who served as the country\u2019s sports minister until a cabinet shake-up last month.<\/p>\n<p>The Rajapaksa clan has dominated Sri Lanka\u2019s politics for much of the past two decades. Mahinda\u2019s younger brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa remains in office as president, with extensive executive powers and command over the security forces.<\/p>\n<p>Weeks of overwhelmingly peaceful protests against the government\u2019s mismanagement of the crisis turned violent on Monday when supporters of Mahinda were bussed into the capital from the countryside and attacked demonstrators.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-government crowds defied a nationwide curfew to retaliate against government supporters for the attacks late into the night.<\/p>\n<p>They set alight the homes of dozens of pro-Rajapaksa politicians, while a controversial museum dedicated to the family was razed to the ground in the country\u2019s south. Namal said his family believed that Sri Lankans had a right to protest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will always stand by our people,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:Daily FT<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton77459\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D77459&amp;text=%E2%80%9CMy%20father%20is%20safe%2Che%20is%20at%20a%20safe%20location%2Cand%20he%20is%20communicating%20with%20the%20family.There%20are%20a%20lot%20of...%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>Mahinda Raja-paksa, who resigned as prime minister on Monday, will not flee the country, his son Namal Rajapaksa told AFP on Tuesday. The 76-year-old heads a political clan whose hold on power has been shaken by months of blackouts and shortages in the island nation, which is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=77459\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;\u201cMy father is safe,he is at a safe location,and he is communicating with the family.There are a lot of rumours that we are going to leave. We will not leave the country.We will always stand by our people\u201d  says  Namal Rajapaksa&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\/77459"}],"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=77459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77460,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77459\/revisions\/77460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}