Oh Karu, Judas would have blushed!

`My dear Karu J,
I thought I should write to you Karu, when I heard some people say you were ready to take up the leadership of the Green Party and you had said that you were ‘ready’. I must say I was not surprised, really, but I thought I should convey some thoughts to you on this issue.

We all know Karu, that politics is a tricky business and getting to the top involves not only ability and charisma but also a lot of luck and being at the right place at the right time. Because of this, as I am sure you know, many people haven’t made it to the very top, even if they deserved to.

You may consider yourself different Karu, and quite fortunate. You didn’t climb the ladder the hard way and in fact you didn’t take to politics until you were fifty five years of age and that too was when the man you are now trying to oust invited you to become the Chairman of the Green Party.

So, you started at the top but thereafter you did perform impressively for the Green Party, becoming the Mayor of Colombo and leading their campaign in Gampaha, which is a traditional Blue stronghold.
At that stage, you were appointed as the No.2 among the Greens by the Green Leader and when the Greens formed a government you got a plum post. Most of all though, we saw you as a gentleman who was above the rough and tumble of politics, who did the right thing, no matter what.

It was after the Greens began to lose that we saw the darker side of you, Karu. There were several attempts to oust the Green leader and when these failed, you did the unimaginable: you took seventeen MPs and crossed over to Mahinda maama’s camp!Of course, you would argue that crossovers are part and parcel of politics and that you wished to strengthen Mahinda maama’s hands to end the war but that is not quite true, we know, because you were back in the Green party-while the war was still being fought in earnest!

Karu, it was an open secret those days that you joined the Cabinet only because Mahinda maama dangled the Prime Ministerial carrot before you and you fell for it, only to find that Mahinda maama had tricked you quite cleverly.

Do you realise Karu, that history will remember you as the person who inflicted the most damage on the Green party? Why, those seventeen MPs you took with you to Mahinda maama today form the backbone of his government, giving him a two-thirds majority and they will never return!

Then, when Mahinda maama gave you the ‘karapincha’ treatment by using you to destroy the opposition and then discarding you, you wanted to return to the Greens. The Green leader was generous enough –or foolish enough-to take you back and ‘reward’ you again with the No.2 position!

Of course, Karu, the Green leader has his faults. Many say that his policies are out of touch with what the voters want and that he spends more time out of the country than in it. But surely, there is a decent and dignified way of sorting that out rather than you, of all people, stabbing him in the back.

Karu, do you also think that merely by replacing the Green leader with you at the helm will convert the Greens to a winning outfit? Don’t you realise what is needed is a radical overhaul of your policies-and not a cosmetic change of the name board at the top?

What we have seen over the past few months though is one camp in the Green party bitterly criticising the Green Man while the Greens are supposed to be fighting an election against Mahinda maama’s party. Now, they have announced that you are ready to lead them.

Then, while the Green Leader is away apprising himself of the virtues of the Commonwealth-another of his foreign jaunts, I must say-you too happily announce that you ‘do not seek positions’ but that you are ‘ready if that is the wish of the majority of the party’. Ah Karu, Judas would have blushed!

So, what do you expect us to believe, Karu? That you, who will turn seventy six at the time of the next presidential election, will beat Mahinda maama and lead the Greens to victory? Then, we might as well appoint the other Jayasuriya, I mean Sanath, as the cricket captain for the next World Cup!

Surely, Karu haven’t all your days as a businessman, ambassador, administrator and politician taught you that you are being used as a cat’s paw? Do you not realise they are using you to get rid of the Green Leader and they would then show you the door as well?

What is of course irritating about all this Karu, is that you portray yourself as a ‘gentleman’. Now, if Mervyn did something like this, we would hardly complain-and he would probably be the first to admit that he did the dirty. But with you, we have to bear the hypocrisy as well.

Anyway Karu, despite all this we have to wish you the best of luck because you will need all the luck that you can get in your future dealings not only with Mahinda maama but also from the young men and women in a hurry in your own party!

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS-Remember Karu, the slogan you first used when you were running for Mayor in Colombo: ‘Avoth Karu, Payai Hiru’? I heard that the Blue boys have a different version now: ‘Avoth Karu, Mahindata Maru’!