As the campaign for much anticipated Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) election has officially been started by both the camps, it has quickly become a high voltage drama. While stalwart Jayantha Dharmadasa led side has started the campaign with a slogan of ‘Let’s make Sri Lanka cricket great again’, former SLC President Thilanga Sumathipala side, after a disastrous previous tenure, is desperately trying for revival through Mohan De Silva.
In this high profile battle, the role of election committee is expected to be the most important. Sadly, it seems the so called independently appointed three members election committee has also started to manipulate things.
On Friday, January 18, the election committee suddenly summoned both the camps for a meeting, without any prior notice.
As Jayantha Dharmadasa was overseas, another stalwart from his side Nishantha Ranatunga and K. Mathivanan attended the meeting with Eastmund Narangoda and Sanjaya Sedara, while Mohan De Silva also came with his team comprises of Shammi Silva and Crysantha Kapuwatha.
However, according to sources, in the meeting only two committee members Justice P W D C Jayathilaka (Chairman) and
Sunil Sirisena (member) were present and third member I M Abeyrathna was absent.
More shockingly, both the election committee members asked the contenders to submit their views on the postponement of the election on February 21 by the sports minister stating that SLC CEO Ashley De Silva has asked committee for their views on the impact of the postponement from ICC’s perspective. At that point, Nishantha requested the committee to read the letter or pass it to him to read the same. However, the Chairman of the committee refused to do so.
According to sources, shocked by this unexpected behavior by election committee chairman, Nishantha and Mathivanan very clearly told the committee that their responsibility is to conduct the elections as per the sports regulations and the particular question does not come under their scope.
Further chairman of the committee tabled a copy of the court proceedings mentioning it was the road map agreed by the courts. Mathivanan then inquired where and how they got this document and the committee chairman in a very suspicious manner said he received same from SLC.
At this point Mathivanan explained to the committee that they don’t want to be a part of this discussion since minister is the ultimate authority and they would like the election to be held as per the Sports law. Furthermore, Nishantha clearly stated that the postponement of election committee does not come under their criteria.
After that, there was a heated argument between two sides. In the end, the election committee member Mr. Sirisena accepted that the calling for the meeting was wrong and advised the chairman not to have this meeting.
However, the incident left many questions unanswered! When Cricket Age inquired, it appeared that Ashley De Silva never mentioned about ICC in his letter to election committee!
Now, this is a case of investigation that who is telling lie? Election committee or Ashley De Silva? More importantly, who put pressure on election committee to manipulate the election process by questioning the election date? It was also mentioned at the meeting that Sumathipala fractions has criticized the minister day before for postponement of the elections and whether the election committee is on an agenda?
Interestingly, just few hours ago, former SLC President Thilanga Sumathipala, in a statement, opposed postponement of the election to February 21 and insisted that it must be held before 9 February. Sumathipala was even spreading the lie that if election would not conducted before February 9, then the International Cricket Council (ICC) is likely to suspend SLC membership.
Another interesting fact is that the member’s names of this so called independent election committee were proposed by Crysantha Kapuwatha, a close associate of Sumathipala. During the meeting, Kapuwatha was also present and was trying to force on election committee members!
