National organiser of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and MP Namal Rajapaksa has challenged the government to hold the Provincial Council election without delay, accusing it of hiding behind a party secretary’s remarks to avoid facing the public at the ballot box.
He made the challenge at a public rally in Panadura on Sunday (24), where he criticised Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s (JVP) general secretary Tilvin Silva’s recent assertion that Provincial Council elections could not be held in 2026.
Rajapaksa stressed that the authority to decide whether and when an election is held belongs to parliament and the elections commissioner alone, and not to any party secretary, however senior.
Rajapaksa accused the NPP government of riding to power on what he described as outright lies and false promises, and said it had since abandoned the very people it had pledged to serve.
He said that the younger generation, farmers, and tea cultivators had all been left without support.
He noted that the government had chosen the path of least resistance by raising taxes, pushing up fuel prices, and hiking electricity bills rather than addressing the structural causes of the economic crisis.
He also accused it of undermining legal consistency and damaging the reputation of the security forces.
Rajapaksa added that if the government was too afraid to face voters in the South, it should at the very least hold the Northern Provincial Council election and uphold the democratic rights of the people there.