SL parliament to meet Tuesday amid tension

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 February 2007, 02:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka parliament meets Tuesday amid unease among a section of parliamentarians of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), main constituent of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government over the allocation of ministries in the cabinet reshuffle that took place last week, parliamentary sources said.

Call by Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) to the dissident parliamentarians to return to the party resigning the minister posts they accepted recently, has also further created a volatile situation among parliamentarians.

The disappointed SLFP parliamentarians including Anura Bandaranaike, Mangala Samaraweera, Maithiripala Sirisena and others did not attend country's Independence Day celebrations held Sunday from where President Mahinda Rajapakse made his address.

Parliamentarians of the UNP dissident group and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) who accepted ministries in the reshuffle attended the Independence Day event.

Meanwhile, the meeting of the ruling parliamentary group of the UPFA government was in progress Monday night to attempt to resolve the intra-party tensions.

UNP general secretary Tissa Attanayake has invited all members of the party's working committee to attend the committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday. Several working committee members are among the defected UNP dissident parliamentarians.

Mr.Attanayake has said that the dissidents are welcomed to attend the party working committee meeting.