• Sagara claims Channa spreading baseless rumours
• Channa claims plans were afoot for MR to become PM and he was invited
• PM's office dismisses reports of a new PM

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) General Secretary Attorney Sagara Kariyawasam yesterday (26) denied claims made by SLPP dissident and Freedom People’s Alliance Opposition Parliamentarian Prof. Channa Jayasumana that moves are afoot to replace Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardana with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, while Jayasumana said these were verified information and not mere speculation.

On Saturday (25), Prof. Jayasumama, while addressing the media stated: “Our friends from the ruling party brought forth a proposal stating that there are moves to create a change in the post of Prime Minister. They said they intend to remove Dinesh Gunawardena from the post and reappoint Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister,”

When queried about the claims made by Prof. Jayasumana on the same, Kariyawasam dismissed such reports and told The Daily Morning that: “Jayasumana is now a political orphan. They don’t know what they are doing. They have realised that they have ruined their political future by leaving the SLPP, and they don’t have any voter base or any people backing them, and now they are in a terrible state. Jayasumana is a person who came to Parliament by publishing his posters along with Mahinda’s face and his entire campaign was based on ‘Mahinda Chinthanaya’, thanks to Mahinda. He is such a disgraceful person that after doing that, he sent a letter along with Leader of Freedom People’s Congress and Opposition Parliamentarian Dullas Alahaperuma requesting former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to remove Mahinda from the premier post. Ten SLPP MPs wrote to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa requesting him to remove Mahinda from the post of premiership. He is one of the signatories to that letter. He is such an ungrateful and politically bankrupt person. When he says something like this, I don’t think the media has to worry about it.”

Speaking further he stated: “Right now we are working very closely with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena and the party has not taken any such decisions and there is no basis for such a thing. This is only to get some third class media attention and to cover up their political bankruptcy, they get into this kind of third grade politics.”

While responding to Kariyawasam’s allegations, Prof. Jayasumana told The Daily Morning yesterday (26): “ It is obvious who is bankrupt now, that is why the local election is postponed. This is nothing about gratitude. This is a comment by me regarding a political moment. Gratitude is a separate matter. I have a certain respect for the former President. He had done a lot of things for the country, especially defeating terrorism. That gratitude is there. At the same time, he and his family were allegedly involved in a certain level of corruption. So I have some disrespect for certain things as well. Respect and gratitude is there for certain things, at the same time some disrespect for certain other things. This has nothing to do with it.”

He further said: “There were certain surveys done by independent parties over the last couple of weeks, with regard to the Local Govenmentelection. I am saying with evidence, objectively it is obvious who is bankrupt.”

Prof Jayasumana further commented: “Those are not speculations, and there were certain discussions between certain groups, on 25 February, the media asked if this is true. I said yes, there were certain discussions. We also have been invited to join this. I said this is not the time to change the Prime Minister; our opinion is that it is the time to change the Government.”

Meanwhile, issuing a media statement, Prime Minister’s Media Secretary Lalith Rohana Liyanage stated yesterday that there is no truth whatsoever in the media reports that Prime Minister Gunawardena would resign.

Furthermore, the media statement noted that there has not been any request or pressure from any quarters for the Prime Minister to resign. These false reports are a part of a conspiracy to disrupt the plans being implemented by the Government.