5th Column

I am writing to you after seeing the tricks you and others in your party are getting up to these days to try and get into the next Parliament. Paradise being a democracy, you are allowed to do so. However, the people and tactics you are using suggest that you have doubts about the intelligence of our voters.

I can guess where you got this idea from. It was after you helped Gota maama win his election. Your network produced a snake from the Kelani river claiming it emerged, in a polythene bag, to herald the arrival of a new leader. As people flocked to the Kelaniya temple, you gave them a ‘pohottuwa’!

That must have taught you two lessons. Firstly, that we are a very gullible people who will believe the most absurd idea, if it was presented to them convincingly. Secondly, you may have thought that, if Gota maama can win, surely anyone can. So, instead of helping others, why not do it yourself?

You contested this time, though even Dhammika could have told you that your chances of winning were zero. You travelled around the country spending money and eating ‘roti’ when you could have easily just watched Anura sahodaraya win. You were only setting yourself up for the general election.

The dear departed SA and Pieter would be turning in their graves, if they knew a capitalist like you was using their party and symbol to run for president. Now, you have abandoned the Communist party, their ‘star’ symbol you contested from at the last election and formed your own party instead.

You must be happy that over a hundred thousand people voted for you at the last election. You came sixth on the list. That was less than one per cent of voters. You must be aiming for 2029 thinking that, if Anura sahodaraya can go from 3 per cent to 43 per cent in five years, it could be you, next time.

You call yourself an ‘entrepreneur’, so you wouldn’t be wasting all that money earned from antigen kits and quarantine hotels for nothing. Your plan is to use the last election as a stepping stone for the general election, make yourself known to people and try and creep into the next Parliament.

That maybe why you chose to contest from Gampaha which returns the most number of MPs. Still, you need to poll at least 70,000 votes to earn your seat in Parliament from that district alone when you polled 120,000 from the entire country just over a month ago. I’ll be surprised if you make it, Dilith.

Those numbers are not in your favour. It would need something special for you to succeed, such as leading a brilliant team. So, when you surround yourselves with the likes of the Wimal and Udaya duo, Channa and then add Daham, Roshan and Dilum as an afterthought, you have sealed your fate!

I feel sorry for Wimal. Twenty years ago, he was the rising star of the ‘rathu sahodaraya’s. If he had a moral compass, he would have stayed with them and could be where Anura sahodaraya is today. He wanted too much too soon, sold his soul and is with the only person who will have him – you!

I don’t feel sorry for his partner though. He is acting like a clown, trying to make a circus of the Easter attacks. He thinks he is omnipotent, wanting ministry secretaries sacked and the President impeached. He believes any publicity is good publicity, but displaying hypocrisy and idiocy isn’t.

Maybe he was in a coma when he was in Gota maama’s Cabinet and could have raised these issues. He is staging a drama to get himself elected and also to oust officials who can investigate his alleged misdeeds. You cannot stoop lower than trying to get elected over the bodies of the Easter day victims!

We can’t expect more from someone who once asked voters for a hundred rupees for his campaign but had a case against him for misappropriation of millions of rupees by a foreigner. You chose him to lead your Colombo list. That reflects either your political sense – or that you didn’t have anyone else!

That makes me wonder whether being involved in financial irregularities is a requirement to be on your team. Why, the chap listed third in your Colombo list was handed a prison term for tax evasion soon after he submitted nominations. Your party is full of ‘entrepreneurs’, it seems of the wrong type.

The other stalwart in your team joining you in Gampaha is the ‘professor’ who accused a medical colleague of trying to forcefully sterilise Sinhalese women. That ‘war of the womb’ led to a wave of hate against a community, ending only when the poor doctor was exonerated of all charges.

The professor should be hanging his head in shame and having his medical licence reviewed. Instead, he is on your party’s list, alongside you. Judging by this, and others who have governed provinces who are also on your lists, is having grievances against a particular community also a qualification?

The likes of Roshan running from Kalutara but hailing from Polonnaruwa, Daham from the same region with an infamous father and Dilum from Kandy make up your uncouth team of candidates. Is your party a refugee camp for the politically destitute who aren’t welcome elsewhere?

The ‘maalimaawa’ won because they had a vision, a plan and a man whom the people trusted. You have none of these except a plan of sowing communal hatred in people to win elections. Voters fell for that trick earlier but reject such ideas now. So, you will go from Dilith to ‘delete’ at this election.

Being from the advertising industry, maybe you can market your outfit better as a street food outlet: Daham’s father will provide hoppers, the ‘professor’ can sell ‘koththu’ that makes women sterile and you are an expert on ‘roti’. Once the election results are in, this maybe the way forward for all of you!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS- Seeing you with a medal around your neck without winning anything is hilarious but that is the symbol of your ‘Sarva Jana Balaya’. Its first letters are the same as Sajith’s party. That is fitting. Both parties are teams of political orphans with a clueless leader who thinks he is God’s gift to politics!