• Only party Gen. Secretary can call the meeting claims Prof. Piyadasa

 The crisis within Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which has now split into two groups, is likely to further intensify with one of its Senior Vice President's, Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva having summoned a politburo meeting of the Party today (8).

In the midst of varying media reports on how the party will move on, de Silva, speaking to The Daily Morning yesterday (7), said that he had called a politburo meeting of the Party today.

However, the other Senior Vice President of the Party, Prof. Rohana Luxman Piyadasa, when contacted by The Daily Morning, said that it is only the Party's General Secretary, Parliamentarian Sarathi Dushmantha who could call a politburo meeting, and confirmed that the latter had not called any such meeting.

A crisis situation has emerged within the SLFP following a series of incidents that occurred in the recent past. In consideration of a plaint filed by former President and incumbent SLFP Patron Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the Colombo District Court late last week issued an interim injunction, temporarily barring former President and incumbent Opposition MP, Maithripala Sirisena as the SLFP Chairperson.

Prior to that, Sirisena removed SLFP members who hold Cabinet and State Ministerial posts in the Government including de Silva, Mahinda Amaraweera, Lasantha Alagiyawanna, and MP Duminda Dissanayake from the respective positions that they held within the Party. They however challenged Sirisena's decision legally, and were reinstated in their positions as ordered by the court.

Following an interim injunction being issued against Sirisena, a group including Amaraweera, Alagiyawanna and Dissanayake entered the SLFP Headquarter in Colombo 10, and held a media briefing last week. Dushmantha had then lodged a complaint with the Maradana Police Station, claiming that some of the documents that were in his office had gone missing. The Police had then launched an investigation into the complaint, and not allowed anyone to enter the Headquarter, a move which was criticised by pro-Sirisena SLFPers who had come to attend a meeting at the party headquarter on Saturday (6).