President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is scheduled to address a National People’s Power farmers’ rally in Polonnaruwa on Saturday, 12 September, the Daily Mirror reported.
The rally is being held under the theme “People’s Rule – Two Years Strong, Progress for All” and is due to begin at 4 p.m. It forms part of a series of rallies the NPP is staging to mark two years of its administration, and promotional material issued ahead of the event indicates this one will focus on farmers and the agriculture sector.
Two rallies, one constituency
The same day, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna will hold a mass rally in Anuradhapura, the Daily Mirror separately reported. National Convener D.V. Chanaka said that event is intended to protest what the party describes as the Government’s failure to honour promises made to farmers and the public, and to press it to deliver on those commitments.
The two events put the governing party and its principal opponent in front of the same audience on the same afternoon. Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura are the two districts at the centre of Sri Lanka’s dry-zone paddy economy, and both rallies are pitched explicitly at farmers — the Government’s on its record after two years, the SLPP’s on unmet promises.
Neither report indicates that either party has acknowledged the other’s event.
Context
The SLPP rally is the culmination of a campaign Namal Rajapaksa has been building for several weeks; he said last week that no one could stop the September 12 campaign. That campaign has run while Rajapaksa himself is in remand custody.
Agriculture has been a live front for the Government in recent days. The Paddy Marketing Board reported this week that it had purchased 64,838 tonnes of paddy from 32,215 farmers across 19 districts, with the largest volumes coming from Ampara and Anuradhapura. The Cabinet also approved a Rs. 2.5 billion subsidy to protect coconut cultivation against El Niño conditions.
Still not reported
The Daily Mirror does not give a venue for either rally, say which ministers or party figures will appear alongside the President in Polonnaruwa, or name the SLPP speakers expected in Anuradhapura. It does not report expected attendance at either event, say whether police have imposed any conditions, or indicate whether the two rallies were scheduled for the same day by coincidence or design. An earlier report noted the SLPP had been refused a ground in Anuradhapura; whether Saturday’s venue is the disputed one is not stated.
