Colombo: 4 people including Interim President Ranil Wickremesinghe are running for the post of Sri Lanka’s new President. Meanwhile, India has refused to accept former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s request to come to India.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country with his wife as the struggle against the government intensified due to the economic crisis in Sri Lanka. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka has banned his brothers former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa from traveling abroad.
Meanwhile, Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the interim president of the country in place of Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday. In this case, the Parliament of Sri Lanka met yesterday. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who had fled from the Maldives to Singapore, had sent his resignation letter to the Assembly through e-mail while he was there. Based on this, Speaker Mahinda Yappa announced in Parliament yesterday that the letter sent by Gotabaya Rajapaksa was true and that he accepted the resignation letter. Speaker Mahinda Yappa said that as Gotabaya has resigned from the post of President, the new President will be appointed within the next 7 days.
Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in his resignation letter, said, “I have served my motherland to the best of my ability. The spread of the corona virus and the general shutdown caused by it is the cause of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis,” he said.
In this case, the current interim president Ranil Wickramasinghe, the leader of the opposition and the leader of the Samagi Gajana Balavekaya Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the Marxist JVP party Anura Kumaratisanayake and Dullas Allaperuma who broke away from the LPP party will contest for the post of President of Sri Lanka.
Outgoing Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Perumuna (SLPP) party has a large majority in Sri Lanka’s 225-member parliament. As a result, the party expressed its support to the interim president Ranil Wickramasinghe.
Meanwhile, former president Gotabaya had asked the Indian government to grant permission to come to India. But the Government of India refused to grant that permission.
In this case, Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been given permission to stay in Singapore for only 15 days and he has not been granted asylum, the Singaporean government officials have said.
Funding from abroad
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan citizens living abroad have started sending funds in dollars to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to help Sri Lanka.