• Stripped of sports, youth affairs, and irrigation-related ministerial portfolios 
• Follows last morning’s P’ment address naming Prez & Sagala responsible if something happens to endanger his life 

Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs and Irrigation Roshan Ranasinghe said that he has been removed from his positions as the Cabinet Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs and Minister of Irrigation.

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna Parliamentarian said that he had received a letter from President and National Policies Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe informing him that he has been removed from all his ministerial portfolios and other positions with immediate effect. 

Delivering a special statement in Parliament yesterday (27), Ranasinghe had claimed that his life was at risk and that in the event anything should happen to him, the President and his Chief of Presidential Staff Sagala Ratnayaka would have to be held responsible. “This is a new rift in politics, and my life may be lost due to it. I could be killed anywhere – it could be today, tomorrow, or the day after. I don’t know. But the President and Ratnayaka will have to be held responsible. Don’t exclude these from the Hansard,” he said in Parliament.

Former Sports Minister Ranasinghe has been at loggerheads with Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and its President Shammi Silva ever since the national cricket team’s humiliating loss to India at the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Cricket World Cup 2023 and subsequent exit from the tournament. Ranasinghe had appointed an interim committee after sacking the cricket governing body headed by Silva following the national team’s disastrous World Cup campaign. 

Ranasinghe had appointed legendary Captain Arjuna Ranatunga as the head of a seven-member interim committee. But the ICC then suspended the SLC with immediate effect for Government interference and Silva also managed to obtain a court order suspending the interim committee. Ranasinghe had accused Silva and other board members of the SLC of bidding for the ban from the ICC, calling it a “big betrayal of the country”. 

The SLC had also recently filed a defamation lawsuit against Ranasinghe for making “damaging defamatory statements” against it, deepening the administrative crisis in Sri Lankan cricket. The chaos in Sri Lankan cricket came after the national team’s early exit from the World Cup. The Sri Lankan team managed only two wins in nine games.