Eastern Provincial Council UPFA Member Wimalaweera Dissanayake said they would propose an “alternate” Chief Minister to the Eastern Provincial Council with the aim of removing present Chief Minister Hafeez Nazeer Ahamed from office.

Dissanayake said that ten members of the council – of whom nine are members of the UPFA – have retracted their affidavits supporting the present Chief Minister. In addition to the nine UPFA members, Jayantha Wijesekara, a National Freedom Front member who contested the election independently, has also retracted his affidavit.

Following the recently held Presidential election, the Chief Ministerial portfolio of the Eastern Provincial council changed with Nazeer Ahamed of the SLMC replacing former Chief Minister Najeed A. Majeed, a PC member of the UPFA. With this new development, SLMC leader Minister Rauff Hakeem invited the TNA and the UNP to join hands to create a “national government” within the Eastern Provincial Council.

Dissanayake said the Present Chief Minister had violated the agreement with regard to ministerial portfolios, prompting the UPFA members to withdraw their support. He added that the new Chief Minister acted in an arbitrary manner and usurped the ministerial powers of Provincial Council ministers. However, he did not disclose the name of the "alternate' Chief Minister who will be backed by the UPFA group. 

“Earlier he promised that the ministers of the province would remain unchanged. A few days later, he usurped all our powers and acted in an arbitrary manner. Then he started dishing out ministerial portfolios at will, without even seeking opinion of the UPFA members who supported him. Therefore, we decided to withdraw our support,” Dissanayake explained.

“With this development,” he said, “the Chief Minister does not have the majority support of the Provincial Council.”

Our attempts to contact the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province on this matter did not bear fruit. However, a spokesman of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress said the party was exploring its options to resolve the problem which has cropped up at the Eastern Provincial Council.