Minister S.B. Dissanayake is tipped to be appointed as the new General Secretary of the United People's Freedom Alliance, informed political sources said.

Born in 1951, Dissanayake entered electoral politics by unsuccessfully contesting from the Hanguranketha Electorate in the 1977 General Election under the Sri Lanka Communist Party ticket. He later joined the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and entered parliament in 1989.

He served as a Cabinet Minister from 1994 under the presidency of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge and was also appointed SLFP General Secretary. He broke away from the SLFP in 2001 and joined the UNP.

Dissanayake was imprisoned in 2004 for contempt of court. He was released in 2006 by the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa government. Dissanayake later joined the SLFP and served as a Cabinet Minister under Rajapaksa.

Dissanayake entered the national government in 2015 following Maithripala Sirisena's victory in the Presidential Election in January 2015.

The UPFA General Secretary position was left vacated by the demise of Prof. Vishwa Warnapala last Saturday.