Chandrika rebuts Maithri’s assertions

The Easter Sunday attacks would not have taken place if Maithripala Sirisena had resigned from his post in December 2018 after the Supreme Court announced that his decision to dissolve parliament in October 2018 was illegal, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike has told Sirisena in a letter.

In the letter Kumaratunga insists that she has not resigned from the party or been expelled. She was responding to a recent interview Sirisena had with The Hindu, where he said that Kumaratunga was no longer a member of the SLFP.

In the letter, Kumaratunga states that if she was no longer a member of the party, she should have resigned from the party or been expelled from the party. However neither of them had happened.

Therefore, she points out that the statement made by Sirisena is untrue and it is unfortunate that he, who has been the party’s General Secretary for the longest time since the inception of the party, was unaware of the party Constitution.

Kumaratunga has also said that she will continue to be present at the meetings of the Executive Committee and the Central Committee of the SLFP.

In response to Sirisena’s accusation that she had attended a rally in support of Sajith Premadasa at the Sugathadasa Stadium in November 2019, Kumaratunga has said she attended a convention of the SLFP, and not a meeting of either Premadasa or any other presidential candidate.

“Instead of supporting any other candidate, I have emphasised the importance of fielding an SLFP candidate and rebuilding the party. No presidential candidate was promoted at that convention. You yourself told The Hindu that the SLFP is not getting the place it deserves in the current government. So, you can’t deny that my warning then was all for naught.”

Adding that she is legally able to attend the Central Committee meetings of the SLFP uninvited, Kumaratunga states that she does not attend those meetings because she does not want to further create chaos in the party already been weakened by Sirisena.