The English language newspaper 'Weekend Standard', also alleged that the Maharajah Group had prevailed over the UNP hierarchy by winning the struggle to make Sirisena Cooray the Colombo Mayoral candidate wiping out all other powerful groups in the party who did their utmost to make their own nominee the Mayoral candidate. Sirisena Cooray submitted his nomination as the CMC Mayoral candidate on Thursday.

"Many powerful groups backed candidates such as Thilanga Sumathipala, Azath Sally, Omar Kamil, Hemasiri Fernando, Bodhi Ranasinghe and Prasanna Gunawardena in addition to Sirisena Cooray who was the nominee of the Maharajah group. Rajah Mahendran aka Killy Maharajah of the Maharajah group openly supported Cooray whose most powerful rival was Thilanga Sumathipala.

"Killy Maharajah, the head of the Sirasa TV, Sirasa Radio, Shakthi TV, Shakthi FM and MTV injected tremendous pressure on the UNP leadership saying that any failure to nominate Cooray as Mayoral candidate would lead to the Maharajah media network ceasing to support the party in the future. He also made use of Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickramatunga and Lankadeepa's Thushara Gunaratne and a correspondent of the said paper Ranjith Ananda Jayasinghe to pressurise the UNP leadership openly.

A curious subject for discussion today is why Killy Maharajah was so interested in making Sirisena Cooray the Mayoral candidate for CMC," the newspaper claimed.

There is a rumour in the UNP inner circles that it was Milinda Moragoda who built up the compromise between Killy Maharajah and Sirisena Cooray.. The UNP leader had to finally bow down to the pressure of Killy Maharajah, Lasantha Wickramatunga, Milinda Moragoda, M.H. Mahroof, Mano Ganesan and the likes who were backed by powerful business institutions of the country.

It is also reported that the attempt made by Cooray's most powerful rival Thilanga Sumathipala to bring a powerful Independent candidate to compete against Cooray had also ended in failure. Thilanga had unsuccessfully done his utmost to persuade widow of President Premadasa, Hema Premadasa to contest against Cooray as an Independent candidate, the Weekend Standard added.

Discuss this story Published: Mon Feb 20 12:08:12 EST 2006

Mrs. Ashraff who is also the Minister of Housing and Construction said that although a separate delegation was not accommodated at this round of talks, "it does not mean that we must stay out of the process. We must instead be part of the process and impress upon our needs," she said.

She was however unable to clarify her agenda at the talks. "I cannot make statements saying that I would say this and that at the talks, because we don't know what the process would be like and how it would be conducted after all it is happening after three years. But whenever possible I will highlight the plight of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka and will also continue to insist on the separate Muslim delegation," she assured.

Meanwhile, sources also said that several Muslim parties and groups had also proposed the name of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauff Hakeem to take part at talks and represent the community as well, as he has prior experience because he was part of the Government delegation during the LTTE and United National Front regime's peace negotiations. However several Muslim Ministers including A.H.M. Fowzie, who also heads the Muslim Parliamentarian's Forum had shot down the proposal.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) boycotted the special meeting convened by the Muslim Parliamentarians Forum early last week. Citing reasons for their decision, the party's Secretary General M.T. Hasan Ali said that the SLMC took this decision as a mark of protest against President Mahinda Rajapakse who has let down the community by failing to accommodate a separate Muslim delegation at the peace talks

Discuss this story Published: Mon Feb 20 12:28:35 EST 2006

Nimal Siripala De Silva, the minister of health who leads the government team at the Geneva talks, said prior to his departure here, "We are hoping to make the best use of the opportunity in order to try and achieve lasting peace in the country."

He and his team comprising three more cabinet ministers departed for Geneva, where the talks would be held on Feb. 22-23 with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels.

The talks aimed at strengthening the Norwegian-backed cease- fire will be the first direct talks between the two sides since March 2003.

De Silva said the talks would be approached with an open mind in keeping with the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse's thinking.

The LTTE, who approaches the talks with a view to getting the government consent to fully comply with the February 2002 accord, needs dismantling of the paramilitary groups who they say are operating in the North and East provinces with the blessings of the government troops.

The government accuses the LTTE of carrying out murders violating the cease-fire and wants the LTTE to stop resorting to violence.

Although the talks would be limited to the truce, the government hopes that the talks would lead the way to direct negotiations toward the ultimate settlement of the drawn out separatist armed conflict that has claimed over 64,000 lives since the 1980s More... Published: Mon Feb 20 20:22:05 EST 2006