Sri Lanka People’s Front Batticaloa District Parliamentarian Sathasivam Viyalendran took oath as a State Minister yesterday (6).
Viyalendran swore before President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the Presidential Secretariat, as the Minister of state for Backward Rural Development and Domestic Animal Husbandry and Small Economic Crop Promotion.
He was earlier sworn in as the Minister of State for Postal Services and Professional Development of Journalists on 12th August.
PLOTE,TNA and the Present
He was elected as the Batticaloa District Parliamentarian representing ITAK in 2015. He was a former PLOTE activist and was removed from the organization later. After the unconstitutional appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister by President Maithripala Sirisena in October 2018, Viyalendran joined to support that government and became the Deputy Minister of Regional Development in the East. He lost his ministerial position from 2nd November to 15th December 2018 as the Supreme Court ruled that the President’s decision was unconstitutional in appointing the new PM.
Supporting Rathana Thero
On 1s of June 2019, Viyalendran came back to the spotlight as he launched a fast in support of Athuraliye Rathana Thero at the Gandhi Park in Batticaloa. Rathana Thero began a fast in front of the Temple of Tooth in Kandy demanding the removal of Rishad Bathiudeen, a cabinet minister at the time, A.L.M. Hizbullah, then governor of the Eastern Province and Azad Salley, the then governor of the Western Province. His fast ended without any definite decision, so was Viyalendran’s fast.
Difference in Votes
Viyalendran, who took 39,321 votes in the 2015 election, was able to get only 22,218 votes in the 2020 election. However, he won the Parliamentary seat from the Batticaloa District.
