Minister of Petroleum Anura Priyadarshana Yapa has been appointed as the new General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

This decision has been taken at a special SLFP Central Committee meeting which was held midnight yesterday at the Presidential Secretariat.

Sources told Asian Mirror that Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa will assume his duties from today morning.

It was widely speculated that Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake will be appointed as the General Secretary of the party, replacing Maithripala Sirisena. However, at the last moment, Anura Yapa came forward as the suitable candidate for the position.

The SLFP was pushed to take this decision as the former General Secretary Minister Maithripala Sirisena stepped down from all his positions of the government and officially announced himself as the common candidate for the Presidential Election 2015.