{"id":119704,"date":"2014-02-07T00:11:09","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T18:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=119704"},"modified":"2014-02-20T11:59:46","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T06:29:46","slug":"muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/","title":{"rendered":"Muzammils Declare War On Ranil, Cosy Up To Sirasa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Colombo Mayor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=A.J.M.+Muzammil&amp;x=11&amp;y=1\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A.J.M. Muzammil<\/span><\/a> and his wife Firoza have virtually declared war on the United National Party after the party&#8217;s nomination board refused to grant Colombo&#8217;s First lady a nomination to contest on the party ticket at the Western provincial Council elections.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_119705\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Muzammil.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-119705\" class=\"size-full wp-image-119705\" alt=\"A.J.M. Muzammil and his wife Firoza \" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Muzammil.jpg\" width=\"140\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-119705\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A.J.M. Muzammil and his wife Firoza<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Mayor, who has long been suspected of major liaisons with the Rajapaksa administration and particularly the Defence and Urban development Secretary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Gotabaya+Rajapaksa&amp;x=15&amp;y=2\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Gotabaya Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a>, yesterday sacked his coordinating secretary who had been nominated to serve the UNP mayor by Party Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Ranil+Wickremasinghe&amp;x=14&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ranil Wickremesinghe<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Muzammil has publicly vowed to ensure the UNP is defeated in Colombo at the Western provincial Council elections in March after his wife was refused a nomination. Firoza Muzammil resigned from the UNP national executive committee. Soon after Mrs. Muzammil sent her letter of resignation to Wickremesinghe, she released the letter to the Sirasa Media Network, through its chairman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Kili+Rajamahendran&amp;x=12&amp;y=6\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Kili Rajamahendran<\/span><\/a>. The Sirasa Media Network and its chairman have declared war on Wickremesinghe and remain committed to the UNP&#8217;s defeat at the WPC election.Believing Wickremesinghe to have denied Mrs Muzammil a nomination for the election, the Muzammils have been in regular contact with the Sirasa Media Group.<\/p>\n<p>Having tasted the power of mayoral office and the privileges of proximity to the Rajapaksa Administration through the Defence Secretary, the Muzammils looked to expanding their power base with Firoza Muzammil also hoping to attain public office. The Muzammil family dynasty has been expanding since he assumed office in 2011, with the Mayor&#8217;s daughter in law now in the employ of Rajapaksa acolyte and big time businessman, Dhammika Perera.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, in defiance of a UNP boycott of the Commonwealth Summit, Mayor Muzammil attended CHOGM in his capacity as First citizen of Colombo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":119705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Muzammils Declare War On Ranil, Cosy Up To Sirasa - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Muzammils Declare War On Ranil, Cosy Up To Sirasa - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-06T18:41:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-02-20T06:29:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Muzammil.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"140\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"199\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/\",\"name\":\"Muzammils Declare War On Ranil, Cosy Up To Sirasa - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Muzammil.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-06T18:41:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-02-20T06:29:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/muzammils-declare-war-on-ranil-cosy-up-to-sirasa\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Muzammil.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Muzammil.jpg\",\"width\":140,\"height\":199,\"caption\":\"A.J.M. 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