My Dear Somawansa, Tilvin and Wimal sahodarayas,I thought I must write to you because all of you have been in the news recently although for the wrong reasons. Anyway, I suppose you believe that any publicity is better than no publicity at all and considering your plight at the moment, that may even be quite appropriate…

We all know, sahodarayas, that this country for long had to choose between the greens and the blues. We knew that both these camps were far from perfect but we had no real choice. Then, after a couple of failed insurrections you chaps came along and people who were saying ‘unuth ekai munuth ekai’ began thinking about voting for you.

And they did so too, in large numbers resulting in winning a significant number of seats in Parliament about which Wimal sahodaraya famously boasted that you now held the ‘remote control’ of the government.

And you did indeed, because you forced Satellite to take four of you into her Cabinet if she wanted to continue her rule and she reluctantly did this. And, then when you walked out on her, her ‘probationary’ government collapsed bringing the greens back into power, although it was only for a short period of time.
Since then we have been expecting principled politics from you, sahodarayas, so imagine our disappointment when we are now finding out that you are no different to the greens and the blues when it comes to clinging on to the perks and privileges of power. Now, ever since Wimal sahodaraya broke away from the ‘bell’ group to form the ‘crown’ group, your factions have been bickering and making sordid accusations against each other, so much so that we now realise that even you, the red party, have been taking the masses for a good ride all these years.

This practice of defectors doing the dirty on their former parties seems to be the fashion in politics these days: Karu and his cohorts are doing it against the greens, Mangala is doing it against the blues and now Wimal is doing it against you! Believe me, sahodarayas, it is a revolting spectacle and it only serves to diminish our respect for all those who do so.

And the strangest sequel to this is how vehicles which are owned by Members of Parliament suddenly disappear and reappear in different locations and how supporters of one faction get assaulted by the other group. Why, last week, we even had a lady Member of Parliament from your camp suddenly disappearing for a few days only to re-appear smiling as a defector a few days later!

In these days when everyone is talking about abductions and disappearances, we are relieved that she did re-appear but if this trend continues, sahodarayas, it will be democracy that will disappear from within your party soon…

So now, with two provincial council elections around the corner, far from being a credible third force at the polls, you are reduced to yet another bickering political party, struggling to get its act together-just like the greens, I might as well say!Therefore, be careful, sahodarayas. Unlike the greens, you never had a large enough vote base to call your own and command the confidence of the country. But the recent events that have happened within your party may well be the beginning of the end for you sahodarayas-if you do not repair the damage quickly enough.

Think about it, will you? And also think about the man who benefits from all this-yes, Mahinda maama must be having a good laugh at the expense of all of you-and those incompetent greens as he looks forward to yet another election victory!
Yours truly,

Punchi Putha
PS-We remember how you ruined the Green Man because of his ceasefire calling it the ‘ali-koti givisuma’. Now that your own Vijitha has been found to have offered a director’s post to a Tiger, we should ask whether there was a ‘rathu-koti givisuma’ as well…!”