Despite the widely-held belief that former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was instrumental in Maithripala Sirisena’s defection from the government, JHU stalwart Athuraliye Rathana Thera has stated that the former Minister and SLFP General Secretary was first approached through him – a third party.

In an interview with Daily Mirror today, Rathana Thera had said that  hewas the one who approached Sirisena and suggested to UNP Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe that the former would be the suitable candidate to lead the common opposition. The clandestine operation, according to Rathana Thera, had happened just over two months ago.

In the interview, Rathana Thera, a firebrand MP of the JHU, does not utter a word about the former President Chandrika Bandaranaike kumaratunga’s involvement – suggesting that she did not play any role at the initial stage of the “mission”.

“It was a very difficult task. Until it happened, I was not sure whether our plan would be successful,” Rathana Thera said.

“Mr. Sirisena did not approach me. This was actually the result of logical reasoning. When we tried to bring a candidate from the UNP, there were disagreements within the party. Whether it was Karu Jayasuriya or Mr. Wickremasinghe or Sajith Premadasa, there were certain people in the party who opposed these people. This was when we realised that bringing an external candidate would be a better option. I would like to add here that we have certain pre-conceived notions about Mr. Wickremasinghe based on past incidents. However, this has proved that he is a very flexible, mature and an intelligent leader,” Rathana Thera had said during the interview with Shihara Maduwage, a journalist of Daily Mirror.

Before the opposition started negotiations with Maithripala Sirisena, the JHU had indicated to the United National party that they willing to work with Karu Jayasuriya, if the main opposition party fielded the latter as the presidential candidate of the party. However, a section of UNP members, including its Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa, vehemently opposed Jayasuriya's candidature. 

However, highly placed sources of the opposition told Asian Mirror that the former President had given the opposition leader a name-list of SLFP defectors who were ready to crossover to the opposition. This had happened after the General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party was approached through a third party. Asian Mirror, today, exclusively reported that this list was LEAKED to President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the eleventh hour – allowing him to take remedial measures to prevent further crossovers.