Sri Lanka leader urges Modi to help crisis-hit nation to ‘maximum possible extent’

Sri Lanka Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to try and help the island nation to “the maximum possible extent” amid the worsening economic crisis, reported news agency ANI.

The debt-ridden country is facing its worst economic crisis in decades with dwindling foreign reserves and a huge shortage of fuel and food.

“Please try and help Sri Lanka to the maximum possible extent. This is our motherland, we need to save our motherland,” Premadasa said in a message to PM Modi, as quoted by ANI.

Earlier today, the Sri Lankan leader termed the en masse resignation of the cabinet a “melodrama enacted to dupe” the people of the country. Amid the political crisis fuelled by an economic one, Premadasa said that the resignations are not a “genuine effort” to bring relief to Sri Lanka but “an exercise in fooling” them.

“It’s a melodrama that is being enacted to dupe the people of our country. It’s not a genuine effort towards bringing some sort of relief to the people of our country. It’s an exercise in fooling the people,” ANI quoted the Sri Lankan leader as saying.

Premadasa argued that Sri Lanka is calling for a “pathbreaking wholesale change” that would bring relief to its people and not to politicians. He said politics is not a game of musical chairs where politicians exchange their position.

“We want resignations and then we want a political model that works. A new Sri Lanka will begin with stronger institutions and not just a change in leadership. An interim Government is nothing but Internal party politics,” the Samagi Jana Balawegaya tweeted.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has invited the opposition parties to join the unity government to find a solution to the national crisis. In a letter to all political parties, Rajapaksa attributed the current crisis to “several economic and global factors.”

“As one of the leading democracies in Asia, it needs to be addressed within the framework of democracy itself. We must work together in the national interest for benefit of citizens and future generations,” the embattled president said.