{"id":95814,"date":"2019-11-29T18:32:48","date_gmt":"2019-11-30T01:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95814"},"modified":"2019-11-29T18:32:48","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T01:32:48","slug":"a-tribute-to-basil-rajapaksa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/29\/a-tribute-to-basil-rajapaksa\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tribute to Basil Rajapaksa."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charles.S.Perera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

On the 16 November 2019, the most disastrous, and the worst of all political regime Sri Lanka had ever seen, which every Sinhala should pray never to see again, \u00a0The Yahapalanaya led by Ranil Wickramasinghe as the Prime Minister, was\u00a0at last\u00a0driven away by an overwhelming majority of Sinhala votes. It was a triumph for the unity of the Sinhala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It proved once again that it is the Sinhala who stands up to defend the country whenever it is in danger. The mass of the Sinhala people may be divided, \u00a0but to defend the country against its enemies they will shed their differences to unite as one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u00a0 Venerable Elle Gunavansa Maha Thero made a resounding speech to flaunt the greatness of the yellow robe for this surge of the Sinhala Buddhist revival against the enemies of Sri Lanka-the UNP\u00a0 led by Ranil Wickramasinghe. Today he said that the Sinhala have shown that they haven\u2019t got to appeal to either the Muslim politicians nor to the Tamils to join them to form a government.\u00a0 Many other voices are being raised to hail the victory and at the same time take the credit for the 6.9 million of Sinhala votes that elected a dependable Sinhala leader to lead the country and to bring back what remains of Sri Lanka after it had been hit by the UNP led political tsunami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the 8th January 2015, the Sinhala people were misled to vote for \u00a0for a political change to defeat President Mahinda Rajapakse, \u00a0who had wrenched Sri Lanka from the grip of terrorism, developed the country,\u00a0 brought peace and security, and put it back on the path to progress and development. Mahinda Rajapakse by far the greatest political leader the country saw after independence,\u00a0 and his supportive political leaders were abandoned and left to suffer all ignominies. President Mahinda Rajapakse thereafter handed over the leadership of SLFP to Maithripala Sirisena who was responsible for the aftermath of 8th<\/sup> January 2015.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was hope that President Mahinda Rajapakse may yet be able to form a government after the General Elections held in August 2015. But President Maithripala Sirisena who turned out to be his bitter enemy swore to stop him from becoming the Prime Minister even if he were to be elected with a majority from what remained of the UPFA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, President Mahinda Rajapakse and the UPFA\u00a0 Parliamentary Group was refused\u00a0 even\u00a0 to be the Parliamentary opposition by the Speaker of the Parliament Karu Jayasuriya- a blind follower of the UNP leader Ranil Wickramasinghe, with a subordinate mindset, without the ability\u00a0 to take a decision of his own<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karu Jayasuriya  who brought disrespect to the Office of\nSpeaker of the Parliament ( is even today despite  the defeat of the UNP and the triumph of\nGotabhaya Rajapakse  as the President, occupies\nthe  seat of the Speaker, like a\nmongrel  not eating the straw yet sits on\nit without  allowing the cattle to\nconsume it ),  recognised  the Tamil National Alliance  with only 16 MPs as the official\nParliamentary Opposition and made Sampanthan the leader of the Opposition,\nleaving out the group of 54 parliamentarians led by Mahinda Rajapakse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Mahinda Rajapakse and his Group of Parliamentarians sat in the Parliament as the joint Opposition. They were denied every right in the Parliament with TNA, JVP, and UNF taking over the control of it.\u00a0 JVP along with the UNP\u00a0 initiated accusations and filing charges against\u00a0 Mahinda Rajapakse, members of his government, his Supporters and even his family members for bribery and corruption. A new \u00a0Police Force- the FCID\u00a0 was set up under \u00a0Ranil Wickramasinghe the Prime Minister, which began a period of arresting, imprisoning, and harassing in every way possible the members of the Joint Opposition and their friends and families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was when the country and the former President Mahinda Rajapakse, his brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse and all his supporters, his family members were helplessly facing the sudden unexpected tyranny of a vengeful\u00a0 Sirisena \u2013Ranil\u00a0 Government,\u00a0 that\u00a0 Basil Rajapakse,\u00a0 Mahinda Rajapakse\u2019s youngest brother came into the scene.\u00a0 He was the brain that sustained and gave hope to Rajapaksas and the Joint Opposition. \u00a0He was the organizer, the brain behind the solution to rescues the Joint Opposition from the wreckage. He worked behind the scene without seeking to outshine his elder brothers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna was the result of Basil Rajapakse\u2018s genius. He launched it in 2016 as a political refugee to the shipwrecked\u201d Joint Opposition. It came at a time when there was a genuine grievance of the people calling for a new political party to replace SLFP, which by joining with the UNP to form a Yahapalanaya Government, had breached the very foundation on which SWRD Bandaranaike broke away from the UNP to form a political party of the people.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The popular demand of the people who had by then realized that they had made a mistake on the 8th January 2015 in voting Maithripala Sirisena to be the President for a change, was now calling out for a new political party led by Mahinda Rajapakse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basil Rajapakse is meticulous, organized, and visionary and knew how exactly he could organize a political party to defy the SLFP and the UNP, now grouped together as the Yahapalanaya. \u00a0\u00a0The first challenge came in February,2018, when the Yahapalanaya under political pressure called for local government elections, which it had kept on postponing under one pretext or another, being aware of the unpopularity of the Yahapalanaya Government with already accumulated \u00a0scandals, accusations of theft, bribery, and corruption, the arrogance of the President and the Prime Minister,. One of the Ministers even dared to sponsor in Geneva -UNURC, a resolution brought by the USA against Sri Lanka\u2019s own Armed Forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Yahapalanaya\nGovernment faced the local government election using to the maximum its state\nmachinery, spreading false accusations against the Joint Opposition.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basil Rajapakse with an unbelievable faith in himself, organized\u00a0the local elections campaign, presenting candidates from\u00a0 Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, and brought a resounding victory. It was unbelievable that a political party-\u00a0 Sri Lanka Podujana Peramun in just two years after it was launched,\u00a0 became so popular and lead the local election results by\u00a0 40 percent of votes, while the UNP the oldest political party got\u00a029 percent of the votes and the SLFP\u00a0 only 12 percent of the votes<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the organizing genius of Basil Rajapakse. Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna had the Lotus Bud- an appropriate symbol of identity.\u00a0 It caught the admiration of the people who drowned it in a deluge of mass popularity. At the\u00a0 Presidential elections of 2019, the Presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa won with the Lotus Bud symbol. It was far better than it would have been in the Presidential Candidate was to have been represented by the symbol of a Chair as it was proposed by the SLFP, which was trying a come back after the loss of its popularity at the Local Government polls.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps it is better than the Lotus Bud popularly called the Pohottuva, be the electoral symbol for all future elections contested by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and its allied Parties in a common font.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksha we hail today was the contribution of the genius of Basil Rajapakse.\u00a0 The Lotus Bud \u2013- Pohottuva of Basil Rajapakse has not only made it possible to vanquish a detested enemy- the UNP and its allied political partners, \u00a0but also brought hope and expectations with a a new President who has already won the hearts of all , even perhaps some of the Tamils and the Muslims who did not vote for him<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the defeat, of President\u00a0 Mahinda Rajapakse on 8 January 2015,\u00a0 Basil Rajapakse who left to America, was scandalized and the defeat of Mahinda Rajapakse has also attributed him.\u00a0\u00a0 JVP\u00a0 had filed charges against him for misappropriation of public funds.\u00a0 Basil Rajapakse, therefore, returned to Sri Lanka to face charges and the enemies. The Yahapalanaya filed charges against him for the distribution of roofing sheets, and GI Pipes for local bodies. \u00a0Those were cases like all others, brought to harass and bring disrepute to the Rajapakses, his then Ministers, supporters, and the families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The founder of Sri Lanka Podujana Reramuna \u00a0Basil Rajapakse is responsible for saving Sri Lanka from falling into to the clutches of\u00a0 Tamil politicians who were preparing a Federal Constitution which was likely to have been accepted and passed in Parliament by Ranil Wickramasinha the Leader of the UNP, JVP and the Yahapalanaya group of political parties.\u00a0 Therefore we owe to Basil Rajapakse our gratitude for having saved Sri Lanka from that sinister end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore we pay this tribute to this humble man Basil Rajapakse who remains behind the scene, to keep the boats of political progress sail in safety in untroubled waters of political stability. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charles.S.Perera On the 16 November 2019, the most disastrous, and the worst of all political regime Sri Lanka had ever seen, which every Sinhala should pray never to see again, \u00a0The Yahapalanaya led by Ranil Wickramasinghe as the Prime Minister, was\u00a0at last\u00a0driven away by an overwhelming majority of Sinhala votes. It was a triumph […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95814","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=95814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}