Ever since parliament was suspended this summer ordinary people on the island had no doubt that Thondaman’s Ceylon Workers’ Congress would throw their support behind the UPFA to give them a working majority. The questions seemed to be only when and what the price would be. Now we know one version of the story.
Thondaman gave as one of his reasons for supporting the government the need to move the peace process forward. It would be good if he delivers on this promise. — Editor
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From the Sunday Leader, September 12, 2004:
Thondaman on the run…
And days before Arumugam Thondaman announced his “unconditional support” for the government he made an important purchase. He bought himself a spanking new Grand Cherokee Chrysler from Diesel and Motor Engineering for the princely sum of Rs. 5.9 million.
Yet, Thondaman continues to swear until blue in the face that he has had no personal interest in the multi million dollar contract at the Water Board or that he accepted big bucks “on behalf of the party” to profess solidarity with a government that cannot yet make head or tail of what and where to go with the peace process.
And while we waited with bated breath to applaud Thondaman’s magnanimous gesture, he delivered another gem. All this, he said, is in the name of his dead grandfather and his people – Grand Cherokee Chrysler and all. Believe it or not, he left out that last bit of information when he delivered his message to the masses. And we are told the Bank of Ceylon is still awaiting the long overdue payments from the CWC running in to millions.
http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20040912/issues-more.htm
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From the Sunday Leader, September 5, 2004:
Thondaman’s pressure tactics backfire
Our nutshell on page one last week referring to this contract and promising the truth will out this week threw Arumugam Thondaman into a panic. Very keen that his Indian lady friend gets this contract, Thondaman began moving heaven and earth to stop this story hitting the
streets.
Using pressure tactics, he first contacted his friends in the UNP. However when that did not work, in desperation he met with S. B. Dissanayake on Thursday night and indicated he was going to support the government if he was to be exposed in this manner. Afterwards he met
with Ravi Karunanayake and expressed similar sentiments.
If the story was not stopped, he threatened to call a press conference announcing his support to the government, insisting this story to appear in The Sunday Leader this week was at the behest of Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Little does Thondaman realise that our source for this story came not from opposition ranks but from one within the very government Thondaman is now going to support.
On Friday (September 3) morning, Thondaman tried once again to stop http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20040905/spotlight-more.htm this story from being published. He spoke with the editor of this newspaper on the telephone where he admitted that he had alleged that Ranil Wickremesinghe was behind exposing this deal. The editor politely
informed Thondaman that The Sunday Leader does not run stories on the dictates of any politician but purely in view of public interest.
The editor also informed Thondaman that his decision to support or not to support the government was not of any consequence to this newspaper and irrelevant as far as our decision stood to publish the story. The editor told him in no uncertain terms that his “crossover” was a matter he needed to settle with the UNP and not with The Sunday Leader.
But Thondaman was not about to give up. He then telephoned Ranil Wickremesinghe and appealed to the latter to intervene, speak with the editor of The Sunday Leader and stop this story. We learn that Wickremesinghe told Thondaman he was not in a position to have this
story stopped as this newspaper for the past several weeks has been harshly critical of him and been calling for his removal.
And after all this Thondaman displayed his hypocrisy when at the afternoon press conference on Friday when questioned by The Sunday Leader he blithely claimed “so if the Water Board does not want this contract, so be it. I have nothing to do with it.”
Why he then spent the entire morning on Friday pleading to have the story stopped from being printed all boils down to a multi million dollar deal for his Indian confidante.