{"id":90158,"date":"2019-06-10T16:32:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T23:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=90158"},"modified":"2019-06-10T16:32:45","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T23:32:45","slug":"golden-opportunity-ahead-for-muslim-mps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/06\/10\/golden-opportunity-ahead-for-muslim-mps\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden opportunity ahead for Muslim MPs"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Lionel Rajapakse <\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>No\ndoubt, recent resignation of government Muslim MPs from their portfolios,\nhelped to widen the gap between the Muslim and Sinhala communities. It was\nunexpected and no body asked for all of them to resign. Ven Rathana Thero\ndemanded only Eastern Province Governor Hizbulla, Western Province Governor\nAzath Salley and Minister Rishad Bathiudeen to resign. Joint opposition brought\na no-confidence motion against only&nbsp;\nMinister Rishad Bathiudeen. But in solidarity with Minister Rishad Bathiudeen,\nall the Muslim MPs resigned en block. It is sad to see even Mr. Kabir Hashim,\nwho publicly accused a Muslim politician for interfering with the Wanathavilluwa\ninvestigations, joined in hands with the solidarity group for Mr. Rishad Bathiudeen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now\nit is perfectly clear that this is a temporary move to allow some time to\nsettle the dust and then start the same game again. Sri Lanka Muslim Congress\nleader, Mr. Rauff Hakeem gave only a month to prove any allegation against any\nof his colleagues. Is this a practical challenge? No way. Even a kid can\nunderstand the plan is to reinstate &nbsp;them\nin their former positions after few months. We haven\u2019t forgotten what happened\nwith Tilak Marapana and Ravi Karunanayake. These politicians still think we are\nidiots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As\na positive gesture for the people\u2019s demand, rather than giving time frames for\npublic to prove his colleagues are corrupted, Mr. Hakeem should have asked from\nMr. Rishad Bathiudeen to declare his assets before and after he entered the\npolitics, at least. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Irrespective\nof who comes to the power next, Sri Lanka needs a change as soon as possible.\nNo body can disagree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\nis a no confidence motion against the current government in the horizon. If the\nMuslim MPs really want to win the hearts of the Sinhalese, best thing they\nshould do is, stay neutral at this critical point.&nbsp; If the Muslim MPs vote against this motion,\nthat will be an&nbsp; irreversible mistake\nthey are going to make in the history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hope,\nin the name of Allah, they will stay neutral and not miss this golden\nopportunity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lionel\nRajapakse <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Rajapakse No doubt, recent resignation of government Muslim MPs from their portfolios, helped to widen the gap between the Muslim and Sinhala communities. It was unexpected and no body asked for all of them to resign. Ven Rathana Thero demanded only Eastern Province Governor Hizbulla, Western Province Governor Azath Salley and Minister Rishad Bathiudeen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}