By Saman Indrajith

SJB Colombo District MP Mujibur Rahman told Parliament on Friday that reconciliation and inter-communal harmony would remain a distant dream as long as the government from the top to bottom worried only about the interests of one particular race.

Participating in the second reading debate on the budget 2021 on Thursday, MP Rahman said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in his address to the nation on Wednesday commenced his speech by categorically excluding other communities focusing only on the majority community. “That is wrong. When the President holding the highest office of the country sets such an example, then it is impossible as the very same attitude is percolating down to other posts and finally the entire government machinery to the exclusion of other communities,” the MP said.

Rahman said that creating ‘us’ and ‘them’ mindset would be detrimental to the efforts to bring about ethnic harmony and reconciliation. “The President’s speech was an address to the nation and not to a single community. After winning the election, he became the President of the entire nation not the President of a particular community. But the President at the beginning of his speech stated that he had been voted in by a particular community. That is wrong. None of the former Presidents did such a thing. When the address is to the nation, it includes all communities in this country. After the recent presidential elections in the US, Joe Biden said that hereafter there would be no red and blue states in the US but he had only a single nation. That should be the attitude of a president. President Rajapaksa in his policy manifesto ‘Saubhagyaye Dekma’ (Vision of Prosperity) promises communal harmony. But in his speech he excludes other communities.

MP Rahman said the backbenchers of the government rank shouted at him hurling abuses and calling names.

Badulla District SLPP MP Thisakutti Arachchi said that the President had, in his speech, thanked those who had voted for him; he asked what was wrong with it.

Kurunegala District SJB MP Thushara Indunil raising a point of order called on the chair to control the House and requested all unparliamentary words by the government MPs be expunged from the Hansard.

Presiding member Matara District MP Weerasumana Weerasinghe ordered that all unparliamentary words of the government MPs be expunged and added that MP Rahman was to speak about budget proposals but he addressing some other issues.

MP Rahuman: “Those new comers need some coaching on how to behave in Parliament. Learn to listen even if you cannot agree with what the person says. That is the first lesson in democracy. The President, on the one hand, speaks of curtailing extremism and racism and, on the other, he himself creates divisions. If he wants to take forward the Saubhagyaye Dekma and the economy of the country he should think in terms of a Sri Lankan identity.

Presiding member Matara District MP Weerasumana Weerasinghe warned MP Rahman to stick to the subject he should be speaking on so that he could control the House.