Nine Speakers I worked with in my 33 years in Parliament

(Excerpted from Memories of 33 years in Parliament by Nihal Seneviratne)

During my 33 years in Parliament, I worked with nine Speakers of the House and maintained cordial relations with them all. Here are thumbnail sketches of each of them.

R.S.Pelpola (5 August 1960 – 24 January 1964)

The first Speaker I worked with when I joined the then House of Representatives was R.S. Pelpola. He interviewed me together with Dudley Senanayake. I worked under Pelpola for a few formative years in my job. He lived at the Speaker’s official residence, Mumtaz Mahal, in Colombo 03 and we were always happy when we were summoned to come to his place as he had six beautiful daughters one of whom even became a beauty queen, a Miss Ceylon I believe. He was a very gentle and congenial person.

Hugh Fernando (24 January 1964 – 17 December 1964)

The incident involving the fall of Mrs. Bandaranaike’s Government by one vote took place in 1964 when Hugh Fernando was the Speaker. I have written about that in an earlier chapter. On that vital day of the vote, he wanted to skip the sitting knowing the controversial nature of what might happen. Hence he called me to his room and said, “Nihal, I am not available this afternoon”.

I was taken aback and said, “Why Sir?” He responded saying ,” I have some important work. I am going out of Colombo .”I told him the debate that afternoon was important and he should be present. He flatly refused. “No, no, you will have to find someone else to chair. I am leaving and left the building.

The Deputy Speaker at the time was none other than Mahinda Rajapaksa’s father D.A. Rajapaksa and so I got him to preside, and the day ended with the Government of Mrs. Bandaranaike losing the vote on the Throne Speech by one vote which resulted in the fall of her government.

It became evident later that there was much maneuvering by the UNP to defeat the Government and some MPs voted against their own side. I even remember MP’s telling me later that they went to a certain house and were given a small suitcase full of cash. So, I think it was way back then that corruption started.

I felt Hugh Fernando was also a part of it, though he never accepted cash and was acting according to his conscience. Later, he changed sides and I believe he contested the Wennappuwa seat from the UNP.

I was fairly friendly with Hugh Fernando. He had a liking for an imported brand of shirts called Fablo and he used to take me with him when he went shopping for the shirts at the old British department store named Whiteaways in Colombo Fort.

Sir Albert Peries (5 April 1965 – 21 September 1967)

Sir. Albert Peiris from Nattandiya was very strict and firm. It was during his tenure that I had a little incident with him involving the question in Parliament on the gifting of a Morris Oxford car to Prime Minister Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, which I have written on in an earlier chapter. When the matter was brought to the attention of Sir Albert, he asked me, “Why did you allow this? “I said, “I am sorry. It was a mistake on my part.” That is one incident I always remember about Sir Albert. Other than that, I did not have any other eventful incidents during his tenure. The Catholic people in Nattandiya in particular, held him in high esteem.

Shirley Corea (27 September 1967 – 25 March 1970)

I remember Shirley Corea whose constituency in Chilaw had a place called Udappuwa where there was a fire walking ceremony each year and he used to invite diplomats to see it and very often they did come because not many had seen fire walking.

Once he invited my wife and I. We travelled all the way to Udappuwa and watched the fire walking ceremony and enjoyed a meal over there. He was good as Speaker and firm in his decisions.

Stanley Tillakaratne

, Seventh Parliament (7 June 1970 – 22 May 1972) and first National State Assembly (22 May 1972 – 18 May 1977)

I had a cordial personal relationship with Stanley Tillakaratne when he was Speaker. We travelled together to North Korea which is an unforgettable experience. I have written about him in a previous chapter.

Anandatissa de Alwis

(4 August 1977 – 07 September 1978) of the first National State Assembly (7 September 1978 – 13 September 1978) of the first Parliament.

When I think of Anandatissa de Alwis what comes to mind is the effort he put in when the Parliament was shifted from Galle Face to Kotte. I remember us going together with him to inspect the site on which the present Parliament stands when it was nothing but a huge marshy land. I have written in detail about my association with him in the previous chapters.

M.A.Bakeer Markar

(21 September 1978 – 30 August 1983)

1 remember one special thing about him I remember is about the Dutch Martinair plane carrying Muslim Haj pilgrims which crashed into the Seven Virgins mountain ranger near Maskeliya in 1974. He played a major role in locating the bodies of the victims of the disaster and attending to the last rites.

Later, he and his wife wereinvited by the Indonesian Parliament to visit Jakarta as state guests. He took me along and we were given a grand welcome. I got the chance to see the world famous Borobudur Temple and being a Buddhist, it was a rare privilege. And then there was a ceremony where all religious observances were followed for the 80 Muslim pilgrims who died in the plane crash. They thanked the government and the Speaker for what they had done at such a tragic time.

Later, I was acquainted with his son Imtiaz Bakeer Marker when he entered Parliament. He is a very bright and decent young man who is one of the few trilingual MPs fluent in English, Sinhala and Tamil

E.L.Senanayake

(6 September 1983 – 20 December 1988)

E.L.Senanayake who hailed from Kandy was a very tough speaker. I remember in the House when I told him “Sir be careful,” one day when he was being very tough with the MPs, he retorted, “Seneviratne you just wait. I will handle the House.”

Another incident comes to mind as I write about him. I was due to accompany Speaker Senanayake to the United States and from there onto Cuba. For the flight from London to New York, he insisted that we fly on the new Concorde aircraft which cuts the trans-Atlantic flying time by three hours. I then told him that my parliamentary budget will not cover this as it was more expensive than a first-class ticket on the regular commercial flight which we were entitled to.

He said, “I will see that the necessary funds are provided.” So, for the first time in my life I flew on the Concorde. The seats were very small and narrow, maybe to accommodate fewer passengers. All I recall was that it was a much shorter flight taking us to New York from London in three and a half hours while the normal flight would have taken around eight hours.

We became friends too. I remember him telling me that when he was a young MP from Kandy, D.S. Senanayake, who was Prime Minister at the time had told him, “EL, I am sending 100 people to Kandy You have to look after them for two days” In those days there were no rice packets and he had to spend from his pocket and arrange for his wife and servants to cook for 100 people.

When once I visited him in Kandy he said, “You must have a drink. I have a bottle of blue label whiskey.” I declined saying, “No sir I don’t drink”. He however insisted saying he must open the bottle as I had come to visit him. E L Senanayake’s wife who was close by, overheard our conversation and said,” No, no he doesn’t want to give you a drink, he wants to open the bottle to have a drink himself.”

Mr. Senanayake had a large family. I remember one of his sons accompanied us when he went on an overseas tour. One of his sons also became the Mayor of Kandy.

M.H.MOHAMED

(9 March 1989 – 24 June 1994)

The most memorable incident involving M.H.Mohamed was the attempt to impeach President Ranasinghe Premadasa. It was one of the most tightly guarded secrets and being the Secretary General of Parliament, even I was kept in the dark of its contents. I have written in detail on this in a previous chapter.