Keep helping: Sri Lanka’s Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa appeals to PM Modi

International

oi-Deepika S

Colombo, July 20: Sri Lanka’s main Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa has made a request to India to continue providing help to the crisis-hit island nation, regardless of who becomes the next president.

“Irrespective of who becomes the President of Sri Lanka tomorrow it is my humble and earnest request to Hon. PM Shri @narendramodi, to all the political parties of India and to the people of India to keep helping mother Lanka and it’s people to come out of this disaster,” Premadasa tweeted.

Sri Lanka’s Parliament will directly elect a President in a triangular contest on Wednesday. Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe will face Dullas Alahapperuma and Anura Kumara Dissanayake in the election.

The 225-member Parliament is dominated by the ruling SLPP party, which has nearly 100 lawmakers. The ruling SLPP which officially announced it would be backing Wickremesinghe, the acting president, found some resistance to its decision from within.

Sri Lanka crisis: Sajith Premadasa opts out of President race

Meanwhile, the security has been beefed up in and around Sri Lanka’s Parliament complex on Tuesday after the Speaker lodged a complaint with the Inspector General of Police calling for a detailed investigation to be conducted into certain inflammatory posts published on social media threatening Members of Parliament.