{"id":161514,"date":"2016-04-30T00:08:47","date_gmt":"2016-04-29T18:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=161514"},"modified":"2016-04-30T00:08:47","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T18:38:47","slug":"rajiva-accuses-karu-of-misusing-power-over-appointing-sampanthan-as-opp-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/rajiva-accuses-karu-of-misusing-power-over-appointing-sampanthan-as-opp-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Rajiva Accuses Karu Of Misusing Power Over Appointing Sampanthan As Opp. Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Parliamentarian, Professor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Rajiva+Wijesinha&amp;x=11&amp;y=5\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Rajiva Wijesinha<\/span><\/a> has accused Speaker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Karu+Jayasuriya&amp;x=4&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Karu Jayasuriya<\/span><\/a> of misusing his power and recognizing leader of the Tamil National Alliance <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=R.+Sampanthan&amp;x=11&amp;y=3\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">R. Sampanthan<\/span><\/a> as the Leader of the Opposition.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_140034\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/i-resigned-ranil-asked-me-to-read-butlers-art-of-the-possible-rajiva\/rajiva-5\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-140034\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-140034\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-140034\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Rajiva--300x159.jpg\" alt=\"Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha \" width=\"300\" height=\"159\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Rajiva--300x159.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Rajiva-.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-140034\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In a post on his Facebook Page, Wijesinha said that he was \u2018astonished\u2019 at the shenanigans going on with regard to the actual opposition in the country. \u201cSadly the villain of the piece is my old friend Karu Jayasuriya, who sadly misused his powers as Speaker to call Mr. Sampanthan the Leader of the Opposition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Wijesinha said that 39 years ago his father advised the then Speaker to make an SLFP member Leader of the Opposition, since the position should belong to the possible alternative government. \u201cBut the TULF leader, Mr Amirthalingam, was given the title, which helped immeasurably in the movement for separatism. But then there were numbers on his side whereas now there is not even that excuse for Karu&#8217;s partisan ruling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>His comments come in the wake of the government\u2019s latest muddle, after the Secretary to the Ministry of Parliament Reforms and Mass Media Nimal Bopage issued a statement criticizing the media for giving publicity to the joint opposition, which according to him was not even a recognized grouping in Parliament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo we now have the preposterous letter by the media secretary which even his minister has repudiated. Surely both should know that a secretary cannot send such a letter representing just his personal views,\u201d Wijesinha said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that it was ironic that this incident happened, specially with the brightest and best of the young parliamentarians confirm their position in opposition. \u201cIt is sad that the President does not wonder why he is stuck with the Sajin and Muththuhettigama while Kanaka Herath and Shehan Semasinghe and Ramesh Pathirana and other potential leaders are firmly opposed to what is so obviously a UNP dominated government,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>In September last year, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya announced Sampanthan as the Opposition Leader of the 8th parliament. Sampanthan is the second Tamil politician since A. Amirthalingam to be appointed to the post of Opposition Leader in Sri Lanka. The TNA, emerged as the third-largest party with 16 seats in the 225-member Parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":140034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rajiva Accuses Karu Of Misusing Power Over Appointing Sampanthan As Opp. Leader - 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\/rajiva-accuses-karu-of-misusing-power-over-appointing-sampanthan-as-opp-leader\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rajiva Accuses Karu Of Misusing Power Over Appointing Sampanthan As Opp. Leader - 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