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SLFP, UPFA get tough, abide by party decision or face action
View(s):Members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) will be required to abide by party decisions, or will face disciplinary action, the party’s Acting General Secretary Duminda Dissanayake declared yesterday.
“When the party takes a decision all the party members will have to fall in line. If they fail to do so, strict disciplinary action will be taken,” he said.The move comes in the wake of a fresh party re-organisation campaign which was approved by the Central Committee at Friday’s meeting presided over by President Maithripala Sirisena who is also the party leader.
Mr. Dissanayake said that previously non-SLFP members had been taking decisions on behalf of the party, thereby seriously damaging the party. In a related move, the United People’s Freedom Alliance’s Acting General Secretary Vishva Warnapala told the Sunday Times that discipline would be maintained in the UPFA also by preventing smaller parties from dictating terms to the SLFP which has a majority of the members in the Alliance.
“We will not allow smaller parties campaigning on the communal lines to ruin the Alliance. The UPFA will function under the guidance of President Sirisena,” he said. ‘There cannot be two leaders in a party.”
On Friday, a six member committee was appointed by the Central Committee to revamp the SLFP. The Committee comprises former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Prof. Warnapala and Parliamentarians S.B. Dissanayake, Mahinda Samarasighe, Duminda Dissanayake and Sarath Amunugama.
S.B. Dissanayake said they hoped to renew membership of all members of the party while enlisting new members.