BY Upatissa Perera and Ariyaratne Ganegoda
A commotion was created when UNP Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa entered the premises where UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was addressing an election meeting at Galigamuwa on Thursday (26) in support of UNP activists.
The supporters, who had gathered at the meeting, started greeting Premadasa despite Wickremesinghe addressing the audience, which had allegedly irked the latter.
Provoked, Wickremesinghe has gestured at the audience to be silent, but the people had not obeyed his order and continued to shout ‘jayawewa.’
Then, Wickremesinghe, who was obviously angered and provoked said, “We came here not to shout. If anyone wants to shout, they can do so leaving these premises.”
Thereafter, Premadasa addressed the gathering and said, “We should honour the public opinion to push the party towards victory and if the supporters want me to go home I will do so by obeying the public opinion.”
Meanwhile, Premadasa said the purported fisticuffs between two groups were only a creation by certain media personnel.
“The purported claim of a commotion at that meeting was only a creation by certain elements who work for money and liquor,” Premadasa said. Their motive was to slay my character.
“In my opinion, the Colombo-based dirty tricks department personnel would have been inspired to create a scene of an exchange of fisticuffs by a comment made by the Kalawana UNP Chief Organizer Hasitha Muhandiram, who prophesied that the next President of Sri Lanka would be Wickremesinghe. Premadasa would become the President after that Muhandiram said. I responded by saying, “We should get together and move forward without sidelining any leader. Ex Provincial Councillor and present PC candidate Siripala Kiriella remained silent,” Premadasa said.
Other than that, there was no such exchange of fisticuffs or commotion as alleged by that news item, Premadasa added.
