News
Welgama wants opposition seat
Former Transport Minister and United People’s Freedom Alliance Kalutara District MP Kumara Welgama has requested a seat in the Opposition while the United National Party MPs Ven Aturaliye Rathana Thera and Wasantha Senanayake will sit with the Government when Parliament meets for the first time in the New Year.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who will present his Government’s policy statement on January 3 will be allocated a special seat next to the Speaker’s chair, while his brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will be sitting in the front row of Government benches.
UNP Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa has been allocated the seat reserved for Leader of the Opposition while UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe will be seated next to him.
The opening of the Fourth Session of the Eighth Parliament will start at 10am.
Mr Welgama has asked Parliament to give him the same seat in the Opposition he has sat in since 2015. “I worked against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa during the last Presidential Election,” he said. “In such a situation, how can I, as a man with a backbone, go over and sit with the new Government? I will stay where I am.”
He did not see a problem with sitting in the Opposition while remaining in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) as, during former President Maithripala Sirisena’s time, the SLFP was sitting in the Government while a group of MPs, including him, sat in the Opposition.
Seating arrangements have not been changed for Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and Tamil National Alliance MPs.
The names for the posts of Leader of the House, Chief Government Whip and Chief Opposition Whip are yet to be announced. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has convened a Party Leaders’ meeting at 12.30pm immediately after the policy statement.
The Parliament session will be held from 1 pm to 6 pm. It is likely that names for the three posts will be announced before Friday.
Party leaders from both the Government and Opposition will be allocated front row seats in their respective benches.