We added 9 lakhs; Champika
The JHU General Secretary Patali Champika Ranawaka addressing a media briefing said that the JHU managed to muster 9 lakhs of new votes to President Maithripala Sirisena from the Sinhala Buddhist areas at the January 8th polls.
The ex-minister made this remark comparing the outcome of presidential poll with that of 2010 in which the JHU backed Mahinda Rajapaksa.
He added that despite a massive campaign by the ex-President’s team to ‘mislead the Sinhala voters’ the educated Sinhala voters had come in their hundreds of thousands to back Maithripala.
‘Our presence in the alliance for common candidate made the Sinhala voter confident that their aspirations and rights would always be protected under the Presidency of Maithripala Sirisena’ he observed.
Minister also thanked the IGP and the Elections Commissioner for thwarting what he termed a mass attempt to rig the election by using the military.
