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As kids many, many decades ago, one remembers that 17th-century tale of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf. It sure did bring up some laughter, not to mention occasional concern.

This old tale came to mind when I read of that foray of former parliamentarian Udaya Gammanpila, whose recent remarks and challenges thrown at NPP’s cabinet spokesman Vijitha Herath about the missing (or not-so-missing) official reports of the Easter Sunday terrorist bombings more than five years ago.

Not that Gammanpila had intended to tease the NPP stalwart to begin with. He has a tendency to cause annoyance all the way through because he represents no major party, and his way of getting publicity and attention is to talk of ethnic and religious issues in the hope that he would inflame divisive questions so that he and his rabble-rousers might make some headway in the country’s political firmament.

If Charles Perrault’s fairy tale amused us so much in those good old days, one might well wonder how much more Gammanpila’s recent confusing outbursts would have had on the community. This country has seen enough violence and ethnic destruction and attempts at communal reconciliation being undermined, but those to talk specifically of one people and one nation.

One begins to wonder whether this small-time politician trying to play big-time roles has taken to the wartime comedies played by Manappuwa and Josie Baba in the days that Eddie Jayamana and Rukmani Devi provided the only laughter to an entertainment-starved people.

One does not think that it is necessary to recall the low-level imbroglio sticks in the craw is Gammanpila’s audacity into believing that he unearthed two editions of the official reports on the Easter Sunday catastrophe, which had been handed over to the presidents who set up the inquiries or their successors.

And here is Gammanpila several years later shouting hurrah at having laid his hands on the two reports in their entirety—and no missing pages, mind you—as some others had claimed.

That claim came mainly from those who suspected that some pages had been torn off so that those guilty of the cardinal sins of plotting, planning, and executing the dastardly acts would not be identified and they would escape justice for their murderous acts.

If I remember correctly, Gammanpila was in the Gotabaya Rajapaksa cabinet until the first months of 2000. Thereafter he was fired along with Wimal Weerawansa. Preceding president Maithripala Sirisena appointed two inquiries into the Easter Sunday attack and temporary President Ranil Wickremesinghe, one.

All that time nobody seemed to have rummaged the hamas pettiya and graciously handed over the two reports to Gammanpila with every page intact.

Now suddenly, as the parliamentary elections approach, Gammanpila finds himself in another alliance. His new alliance seems politically unsteady, as so many of the present groups are because they have little fulcrum to provide steady political support to an organisation such as the NPP, which has established itself as a major party vying for power.

To detract from the possible power it might accumulate when next month’s elections are over, the best that the combined opposition could do is embarrass the AKD-led government so that, before election time, Gammanpila and others are moved to the frontlines. That way, the NPP voters are made to wonder whether they made an ideological mistake by depending on a socialist-oriented new party.

If the political strategy of the anti-NPP rightist and elitist elements is clear enough, then the Ranil Wickremesinghe faction has still not surrendered their attempt to undermine the NPP at a higher intellectual level.

“Sri Lanka’s former President Ranil Wickremesinghe has called for voters to send experienced members back to parliament in the upcoming general election, saying those who worked with him have the necessary expertise.

“Without experience, you cannot run Parliament; you cannot achieve the goals we have set. Those who worked with me have the expertise to solve the economic challenges,” Wickremesinghe said, making a statement on Thursday.

“So they should be in Parliament, whether in the government or opposition.”

Wickremesinghe said it was important to have experience in running the Parliament and reaching economic goals and urged Sri Lankans to vote for people who worked with him as president to address the economic crisis.”

Now that is all very, very good. I mean, here is Wickremesinghe urging voters to send the bright and beautiful to parliament but also to intellectually adorn Diyawanna Oya, which had been a dull place altogether, except when some of those great legislators started throwing chilli powers and other missiles that the Israelis would have loved to get their hands on.

Perhaps Mr. Wickremesinghe could answer a couple of questions. He wants all those intellectuals who worked with him to rescue the country from economic catastrophe to be elected by a more aware public so that the country would continue on the path of development.

Firstly, Mr. Wickremesinghe forgets that the very hard core of great minds and thinkers were unceremoniously ousted when the president was booted out of office at the September presidential election.

That was bad enough. Some of the great thinkers who helped Wickremesinghe have quietly pulled out of the parliamentary election, perhaps seeing that their chances of returning to parliament are slim.

That does not speak too well for the then president’s evaluation of current Sri Lanan politics. 

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)