5th Column

My dear Sajith,

I thought of writing to you because you seem to be at the centre of a controversy every now and then these days, though you haven’t done anything yourself and have tried to stay out of the limelight. As the leader of the ‘telephone’ party, you are always at the wrong place at the wrong time!  

A few days ago, we heard that Imthiaz had written to you saying he was resigning as chairman of your party. Being one of the very few politicians about whom no one speaks a bad word, his resignation will be a terrible blow to the ‘telephone’ party. Many are asking why he decided to resign.

Some say that the reason is you. It is not so much what you did but what you didn’t do. A few months ago, Imthiaz wrote an eleven-point letter to you urging you to make urgent changes to the ‘telephone’ party. His letter was ‘leaked’ to the public but as far as we know, your reply was a deafening silence.

In that letter, Imthiaz wanted to change the way the ‘telephone’ party was run. By asking for internal democracy, for regular meetings among party members and by requesting that parachutists shouldn’t be allowed to suddenly rise to the top, he was implying that this is what is happening in your party.

As you well know, Sajith, Imthiaz has stood by you through thick and thin. Being quite senior to you, he gracefully accepted you as his leader when he left the Green party and joined you because he wanted to be in a party that was not just a ‘one man show’.

Many thought he should have been the automatic choice for chairman of your party but you chose to give that job to the Field Marshal, probably because he maintained a high profile as a military man and was more marketable to voters as a ‘war hero’. Now we know how that ended, don’t we, Sajith?

Imthiaz also tolerated being omitted from those who were selected to Parliament from the National List. He took that setback in his stride. That is when he wrote that letter to you. Receiving no response and seeing no changes, he has sent you a four-line resignation letter, hoping you will get the message!

What Imthiaz’s resignation tells us, Sajith, is that the ‘telephone’ party is like the Green party. Its leadership also seems to be for life, decisions are made by a few close to the leader and not by consensus and many feel sidelined. Also, like the Greens, it hasn’t won an election in recent years.

Uncle Ranil spent a great deal of time working under your late father. You spent a lot of time working under Uncle Ranil. You may not like to be compared to Uncle Ranil, Sajith, but it is clear that the one lesson you have learnt from him is how to remain party leader at any cost while not winning elections.

As if all this was not enough of a problem, Uncle Ranil is shooting from his lips about Batalanda, getting himself into political hot water rather unnecessarily. Normally, you would have been very happy about that, but this is a peculiar situation, with the rathu sahodarayas now wanting a debate.

I don’t see what good a debate will do to anyone. Uncle Ranil is not in Parliament to defend himself. The rathu sahodarayas who hope to engage in a bout of Ranil bashing won’t cover themselves in glory either because they will also have their own track record in the late ‘80s recalled yet again.

It will be a difficult debate for you too, Sajith. Using big words no one else understands may not help you. On the one hand, you can’t be seen defending Uncle Ranil, can you? On the other hand, you can’t be too critical of him as well because Batalanda happened under the watch of your late father!

While justice needs to be done to anyone who was a victim, I think Anura sahodaraya and his team should think twice before trying to make a spectacle of three-and-a-half decade old issues. Many feel they should concentrate more on finding Sewwandi and resolving the Easter attacks issue instead.

Even so, you should be wary about what you say during the Batalanda debate. Already we saw your Man Friday, Marikkar open his mouth and put both feet firmly in, showing a photo and accusing Tilvin sahodaraya of abusing a July ’83 victim. That’s a very famous photo but that is not Tilvin.

To cap it all, you also have to contest the local government elections. The ‘telephone’ party is likely to keep its record of not winning elections intact but you must at least win some important councils such as Colombo. Or else, even your position as leader of the party’ will come under scrutiny.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: Some say Imthiaz’s resignation is the beginning of the end for the ‘telephone’ party, with more to follow. It seems that Uncle Ranil’s appointees like Arjuna and Deshabandu tend to go missing for long periods but your appointees such as the Field Marshal and Imthiaz all want to resign!