It increasingly appears that the NPP Government, emboldened by the spoils of power and the illusion of permanence that power often brings, is engaged in a calculated attempt to fortify its political base by reaching into constituencies traditionally loyal to the Opposition. This effort is neither subtle nor accidental.
It is an unmistakable acknowledgement that the NPP’s electoral success was not a triumph of ideology or leadership charisma; rather it was a rebellion vote – a massive repudiation of the old parties whom the NPP skilfully caricatured as a “curse” upon the country. As the memory of that anger fades, the party knows it must create a new reason for voters to remain loyal. And it knows it must begin with communities that are structurally dependent, politically vulnerable, and easy to mobilise.
The NPP is acutely aware of the fragility of its mandate. The 6.8 million votes it secured in 2024 arrived on the wings of public fury, not affection. The leadership also knows that this number can evaporate as swiftly as it arrived. They need not look further than the SLPP – an electoral behemoth that surged to 6.9 million votes in 2019, only to crash to a mere 300,000 five years later, almost exactly the figure the JVP historically polled. If the mighty SLPP could fall so far, what protects the NPP from a similar collapse? The answer is simple: build a new core, one that can be disciplined and consolidated in a way middle-class swing voters never will.
And what better place to start than the plantation sector, where tens of thousands of workers – under-educated, economically dependent, and historically mobilised through political or union diktat – represent a bloc vote of enormous strategic value. If captured, they could replace the NPP’s volatile protest electorate with a reliable, permanent base. The method for achieving this, however, deserves full marks for creativity. The NPP appears to have discovered a way to turn the National Budget itself into a recruitment tool.
Budget 2026 proposes an increase in the daily wage of plantation workers to Rs. 1,750, a long-standing demand of the estate sector. On its face, this seems a progressive step. But the composition of the increase has been crafted with remarkable political acumen. At present, the daily wage stands at Rs. 1,350. According to the Government, plantation management companies have agreed to an increment of only Rs. 200. No one seems to know who negotiated this amount, whether negotiations even took place, or why the Government, flush with rhetoric about Guinness World Record-breaking tea prices, did not demand more from the companies themselves.
After all, plantation conglomerates today are no longer traditional tea estates. They have diversified aggressively into leisure, converting bungalows into boutique hotels, tapping tourism initiatives like the Pekoe Trail, and leveraging plantation real estate for multiple revenue streams. If their profits are expanding, why should workers receive only a token Rs. 200? This question alone would have been explosive enough. But the Government appears to have had a far more inventive twist waiting.
Budget 2026 proposes that the remaining Rs. 200 be paid directly by the Government as an ‘attendance incentive.’ The idea of a Government already taxing the public into exhaustion using those very taxes to pay the wages of private sector workers, while these private companies keep their profits, strikes at the very heart of public finance principles. It is, in fact, a direct violation of the constitutional and legal boundaries that govern State expenditure. It is no surprise, then, that the main Opposition, the SJB, has sought clarification from both the Attorney General and the Bribery Commission. If enacted, this allowance could potentially constitute not only misuse of public funds but also an electoral bribe disguised as social welfare.
The NPP, of course, knows full well that plantation workers are not legal experts. They cannot be expected to understand the intricacies of how public money can or cannot be used. And this is precisely where the political brilliance of the strategy emerges. When the Opposition challenges the proposal’s legality, the Government can turn to plantation communities and declare: “We tried to increase your wages, but the Opposition is blocking it.” A political masterstroke and one the Opposition appears to have walked straight into.
But beneath this clever stratagem lies something even more troubling. While made to look like a social justice programme, it is more a covert political operation to detach plantation communities from their traditional political homes and transform them into the NPP’s core cadre. The behaviour of Opposition MPs representing the plantation communities, who voted in favour of the second reading of the Budget last Friday, suggests that they, too, have detected the trap but found no graceful escape.
The economic logic of the proposal is fundamentally unsound. Plantation workers are employed by private companies; thus, it is the responsibility of those companies to pay their wages. If the Government begins subsidising wages in one private export-oriented sector, fairness demands it does the same for others. What about those in apparel factories, the country’s largest private sector export employer? A government cannot arbitrarily subsidise one group of privately employed workers without being morally compelled to extend the same benefit to all. Doing otherwise is a violation of the constitutional principle of equal treatment.
Nevertheless, the Cabinet Spokesman attempted an unusual defence, arguing that if the Government could support farmers, it could support plantation workers. But the comparison falls flat because a farmer is an independent producer, not an employee of a private company. Farmers receive subsidies because they are engaged in domestic food production essential for national food security. Plantation workers, in contrast, are labourers in profit-making export companies. The two groups are not comparable in law, economics, or governance.
Experts have already warned that once this Rs. 200 allowance begins, it cannot easily be withdrawn. It will become permanent, possibly even expand, placing a recurring burden on the Government’s finances. It also opens the floodgates for all other private sector groups to demand similar allowances. If the State is paying wages while plantation companies pocket profits, the logical next step is for the State to demand a share of those profits. Otherwise, this becomes a textbook example of misuse of State funds, incidentally the very accusation the NPP levels at its predecessors with righteous indignation.
The Committee on Public Finance (COPF), an important oversight body in Parliament, has also weighed in. After examining the legal implications of the proposal, the committee determined that the Government could not make such payments to workers in private plantations. The COPF’s mandate is to ensure that every rupee spent from the Consolidated Fund complies with legal and constitutional provisions. Its conclusion that this proposal is unlawful is not a trivial administrative critique but a constitutional warning.
However, the irony cuts even deeper. It was none other than Anura Kumara Dissanayake who, in August 2023, thundered in Parliament that if plantation companies refused to pay a fair wage, they should be taken back under State control. What has become of that revolutionary resolve? Why is the NPP now proposing to subsidise the very companies it threatened to nationalise? Why are billionaire estate owners allowed to laugh all the way to the bank while taxpayers foot the bill for their labour force?
The answer is political calculus. Plantation workers represent a vulnerable, compact, easily mobilised constituency. Winning them over creates a loyal, permanent voter base that cannot be lost as easily as the urban middle class or the youth vote. The NPP is cashing in on cold electoral pragmatism. What appears on paper as a wage increase is, in reality, a strategically engineered political investment. It is designed to reshape the NPP’s future electorate and ensure its longevity even if broader public sentiment turns against it.
The question is not whether plantation workers deserve higher wages; they unquestionably do. It is whether the Government is prepared to confront plantation companies, demand accountability, and enforce fair wages through proper labour regulation.
As the country grapples with economic recovery, fiscal constraints, and fragile credibility of institutions, Budget 2026 offers a glimpse into the NPP’s evolving political playbook. It suggests a Government more interested in reconstructing its own power base than in reconstructing the economy. And it raises an unsettling question: if the Government is willing to bend the rules of public finance for political gain today, what might it attempt tomorrow?