Sri Lanka News, update throughout the day....

---

ARJUNA RANATUNGA REFUSES HIS DEPUTY MINISTERSHIP AND AN ISSUE IS RAISED THAT JHU IS CONNECTED TO CRICKET CORRUPTION

Arjuna Ranatunga receiving the world cup trophy from Pakistan President Benazir Bhutto : He was refused the sports portfolio on the influence of JHU , the political party of the Buddhist monks, it was alleged

By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

April 12, 08.00 AM: Did the Bhikku MP’s of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) put forward any conditions to the UNFA government other than Sinhala Buddhist issues before promising to lend their support in the Parliament to the minority government? Or were there other conditions more than that meets the eye –especially issues related to corruption taking place in Sri Lanka’s cricket game similar to Mapitigama Buddharakkhitha’s connections with shipping business after 1956? The issue has been raised when Sri Lanka’s former World Cup winning Cricket Captain Arjuna Ranatunga refused to take oaths as a new Deputy Minister of the UNFA government and resigned as the youth organizer of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party for Kotte electorate and decided to remain only as a back bencher of the government.

Sources close to the former Cricket Captain said, that a corrupt cricket official’s mother was a leading financer of the JHU.and certainly, not making Arjuna Ranatunga the Sports Minister of the new government was one of the conditions of the Buddhist monks, under the influence of the ‘Cricket Mom’.

After the 1956 election , in which the Jathika Bhiksu Peramuna headed by Mapitigama Buddharakkhitha who had many business interests especially in the shipping industry played a leading role in the election campaign, ultimately led to the assassination of the former Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. But unlike in the 1956 , elements close to the UNP are alleged to have financed the JHU election campaign during the April 2 elections.

For the last few months, the corrupt cricket official brought before the law had been attempting to raise Sinhala Buddhist issues for his refuge, sources in Colombo alleged.

In various interviews with the newspapers and the BBC Arjuna Ranatunga said that hereafter he would keep on working for progress of the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya, the mass organization that collected mass support of writers, poets, working class representatives , farmers , teachers and students for the anti-UNP protests that were launched with the help of the SLFP, JVP and the MEP.under the guidance of Venerable Elle Gunawansa Thero.

He told Colombo’s Island newspaper he was personally despondent to find the Ministry of Sports not allocated to him as he had entered politics in the first place with the motive of heading the Sports Ministry some day.

also said, “As you know I took to politics to develop sports, which was free from corruption,"

The newspaper also quoted him as saying, “It was President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mangala Samaraweera who persuaded me to enter politics for which, at the beginning, I did not have any personal interest in it, though my father and one of my brothers are involved in it.

“Since then I have continued to serve my party when it was the SLFP and then PA (People's Alliance) with the sole aim of doing something worthwhile for sports in Sri Lanka."

“"As of now I, have resigned from my post as SLFP youth organiser for Kotte with immediate effect," Ranatunga pointed out.

"It was a well known fact that the people of this country expected me to become the Sports Minister. I am a person who works according to set principles. And at the moment I am not willing to compromise principles and go against my wishes and do something else," said Ranatunga, who polled 81,914 preference votes in contesting the Kotte seat for the (UPFA) at the April 2 General Election

( go2lanka.com)