Mahinda Rajapaksa through the newspaper’s editor.

 Friday, 03 January 2014 

It has now been established that last Sunday’s ‘Mawbima’ lead story, which claimed former president Chandrika Kumaratunga will be the opposition’s common candidate at the next presidential polls, had been a ‘plant’ by incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa through the newspaper’s editor. 

The newspaper asserted that the decision to field Mrs. Kumaratunga was taken at a yearend party at Matara district MP Mangala Samaraweera’s Bolgoda, Panadura home, also attended by Ranil Wickremesinghe, Karu Jayasuriya, Chandrika Kumaratunga and other leaders.

By ‘planting’ this, president Rajapaksa hopes to find out the SLFP and other government party MPs and ministers who are maintaining links with his predecessor. A special team of the state intelligence service, on his orders, is investigating to find out such persons and is recording their telephone conversations.

The most serious issue here is that the president has ordered the SIS to investigate whether his brother, economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa, was having links with opposition leaders. This follows a claim by MP Namal Rajapaksa that minister Basil was having connections with opposition leaders as well as Indian 

Dudley’s hotel leaves president in jealousy!

 Friday, 03 January 2014 

President Mahinda Rajapaksa last week went to Nuwara Eliya to open ‘Araliya Green Hill Hotel’, owned by Dudley Sirisena, the brother of SLFP general secretary Maithripala Sirisena. Seeing the glamour of Dudley’s luxury star hotel, located near Grand Hotel, the president’s face darkened and he has told those close to him, “Younger brother has not wasted what the elder swindles from multi national companies.”

 Later, upon inquiring from the Sirisena brothers, the president has got to know that the hotel’s first owner was Weerabahu, who had owned Hingurana Sugar factory. Following his death in England, Vanik Incorporation had bought the hotel and as it had become bankrupt, a Maldivian businessman by the name Malik had come to own it. Dudley had bought it from him for eight million USD and spent a further four million USD to modernize it. In the end, a smiling president has said, “Now, there are USD millionaires in Polonnaruwa too.”
 

Soon after returning to Colombo, the president had spoken to a top official in the state intelligence service and ordered him to submit an immediate report regarding everything about Dudley’s hotel in Nuwara Eliya, and based on that report, to lodge a complaint to the Bribery Commission in order to tame the Sirisena brothers.