United National Party MP Ananda Aluthgamage, who pledged his support to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, said that more than 20 UNP MPs would join the Government to support the newly appointed Prime Minister.
He revealed this at a media briefing at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute in Colombo yesterday, October 27. However, the MP said that PM Rajapaksa had asked him not to reveal their names due to security concerns.
“A few months ago at the time of the No Confidence Motion against ex-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, 21 backbenchers of the UNP were ready to vote in favour of the Motion. But the President requested us to give Ranil Wickremesinghe one more chance to build the country,” said Aluthgamage.
“But we informed the President several times that Wickremesinghe is incapable of building the country. Apparently Wickremesinghe wants to hang on to the party leadership until the final member leaves the UNP,” he said.
Meanwhile CWC leader Arumugan Thondaman MP who joined a media conference of the UPFA on Friday, October 26, in Colombo to announce his party decision to support the new government after the swearing-in of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, said that they would extend their support and anticipated more political parties of the minorities from the hill country to support the new government.
At the media conference conducted by party leaders G.L. Peiris, Dinesh Gunawardena, Wimal Weerawansa, Thondaman said that the new Prime Minister had assured his party delegation, which met him on the wage increase of plantation workers, that he would resolve the issue soon.
He also brought to the notice of Prime Minister Rajapaksa the continuing widespread agitations and protests in the plantation areas over the wage issue, adding that he fervently believed that the new government headed by President