Odds & Ends

It is usually fellow MPs who thump their table to welcome a new MP after he is sworn in but on Wednesday when Basil Rajapaksa was sworn in, loud applause erupted from the public galleries as well as from the Speaker’s Gallery which were occupied by the President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as well other members of the Rajapaksa family.

Some of President Rajapaksa’s appointees to Government institutions were also present to cheer on the new MP. As for the ban on clapping from the public galleries, it had to be forgotten for the day. When it’s a member of the first family in the country being sworn in, precedents and traditions can be set aside.

Many posters, banners and flags were put up along the Parliament road to welcome Mr. Rajapaksa and notable among them was the prominent banner put up by Deputy Minister Mervyn Silva with his wishes along with those of the people of Kelaniya.

Mervyn Silva of course is noted for the kind of company he keeps whether he is at a political rally or in courts and last week he was in good company in Parliament as well. One of his close associates Lal Peiris alias ‘Kudu Lal’ was there on his invitation. What next, one wonders.

Injuns have given two hardy knocks to the Sri Lankan President so far this month. First it was a prompt denial from Delhi of an obviously hasty claim by the Presidential Secretariat’s Policy Research and Information Unit that a joint Defence Committee had been set up between the two countries. If that was not enough, the following week saw a former VVIP lady, now on the warpath against Rajapaksas being sponsored by them to visit high and mighty there.

It had even prompted some in the Government ranks to propose that the Government too seeks audiences with big wigs there, but luckily sanity prevailed and it was decided a bad policy to run behind the Injuns.

The Injun government may not be ready to throw the red carpet treatment to Percy Mahinda, but he has been invited by The Hindustan Times to deliver the keynote address this year at its Fifth Leadership Summit on October 13. Therefore whether the Injuns like it or not they will have to accord him the courtesies given to any visiting head of state.

Delhi mandarins who have been showing scant regard for our concerns about the controversial Sethusamudram ship canal project and even totally ignored our request for a meeting early this year on the subject has got poetic justice, with Hindus themselves taking up the issue in their highest court and those politicians and bureaucrats who showed callous regard for their religious feelings are now feeling the heat.

Seven more political favourites were given the nod by the Government early this week this time to enter the second tier of the diplomatic service, having already saturated the top tier, giving more heartburn to the career boys. Director Overseas Administration D.M.M. Ranaraja was tight-lipped about the details yesterday, but a little bird whispered the new postings included some plum cities like Tokyo, Paris and London.

The Ceylon Workers’ Congress seniors who abruptly resigned from their portfolios at the beginning of August after an alleged bout of abuse one of them received at the hands of Basil Rajapaksa and yet remained in the Government fold are now likely to end this state of limbo.

What better time to negotiate a new deal than in the run up to the Budget? So it all points to even Putra also getting a portfolio.