SLFP General Secretary cum SLPP dissident, Kurunegala District MP Dayasiri Jayasekera, found fault with President Ranil Wickremesinghe in Parliament yesterday for misinterpreting history while delivering his Budget speech, the previous day.

Participating in the second reading debate on Budget 2023, MP Jayasekera said that President Wickremesinghe reminiscing the recent history told the House that former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once mentioned that in Singapore Yew had followed the hard, but right path. while Sri Lanka’s Bandaranaike followed the popular path. “This is wrong. The Bandaranaikes followed the hard path instead of the popular path. It was JR Jayewardene who opted to take the popular path. As a result of the decisions made by SWRD and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, people had to wait in queues. I too remember waiting in queues to buy bread with kerosene-smelling clothes. Those were not popular decisions.

“By the time the Bandaranaikes handed over the country to the incumbent President’s uncle, JR Jayewardene, this country had a surplus budget. JRJ chose the popular path and ruined the country.