Colombo, July 21: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe rejected a demand by President Chandrika Kumaratunga to sack one of her strident critics in his cabinet, as relations between the two power centres touched a new low, media reports said today.
Kumaratunga accused commerce minister Ravi Karunanayake of alleging at a cabinet meeting last week that she had "brought bombs in her hand-bag to kill the prime minister and others." In a letter to Wickremesinghe, reproduced in newspapers today, she said such behaviour by Karunanayake in the presence of both leaders and other ministers made his continuance in the cabinet wholly unacceptable.
However, the Prime Minister replied to her that Karunanayake had not made such a serious charge, but had only raised questions about the purchase of a sophisticated hand-bag fitted with high-tech surveillance equipment. He recalled that they had agreed at the time of his appointment as Prime Minister, after winning the December parliamentary elections, that he would choose his cabinet.
Under the constitution, the president appoints ministers 'in consultation with the Prime Minister'.
Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe have been trying to keep in place an uneasy cohabitation arrangement between the two rival parties, but an ongoing cabinet sub-committee investigation into controversial purchases of high security vehicles by the president's office is souring their ties. Bureau Report