Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa joined the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s “Janasatana” public rally in Anuradhapura on Saturday, as the party escalated its campaign against the government, the Daily Mirror reported.

Former Ministers Wimal Weerawansa, Udaya Gammanpila and Tiran Alles, along with Parliamentarian Ramanathan Archchuna, also attended. Hiru News independently reported the same four names.

The SLPP said the rally was organised to protest what it described as the government’s failure to address the problems facing farmers and the public, and to press its objections to the government’s economic policies.

The opening address was delivered by the SLPP’s organiser for the Mihintale electorate, who criticised the government’s handling of the economy and its record on farmers, the Daily Mirror reported in an earlier dispatch filed at 3:20 p.m., about two hours before Rajapaksa’s arrival was confirmed.

The venue question is answered — and two of three outlets say Municipal

The rally went ahead on a council ground in Anuradhapura, resolving the central uncertainty that had hung over the event since Namal Rajapaksa told Parliament on 10 September that the party had asked for a playground in Anuradhapura and been refused.

The outlets do not fully agree on which ground. The Daily Mirror places the rally at the Anuradhapura Municipal Council Grounds, and NewsFirst independently gives the same venue; Hiru News places it at the Anuradhapura Urban Council grounds. These are different tiers of local authority, and the split is now two to one in favour of the Municipal Council. No outlet reconciles the difference or says whether this is the site that was originally refused.

NewsFirst also supplies the campaign’s own name for the event, which neither of the other two reports carries. The rally ran under the theme “ජන පීඩක ආණ්ඩුවේ රුදුරුබල බිඳින ජනසටන”, which the outlet renders as “The People’s Struggle to Break the Power of the Government that is Oppressing the people.”

Neither report identifies the authority that declined the earlier request, or states the grounds on which it was declined. That claim remains unanswered by any authority a week after it was made.

Weerawansa attended in person

Weerawansa’s presence settles a question left open when the National Freedom Front announced it would take part in the rally. The NFF said its Political Council had accepted the SLPP’s invitation, but did not say whether its leader would appear himself. He did.

Gammanpila and Alles broaden the picture further. Neither leads the SLPP, and their appearance on the same platform points to a wider consolidation on the opposition benches than a single-party rally would indicate. Archchuna, the Jaffna District MP who predicted in June that Namal Rajapaksa would contest the 2029 presidential election, was on the stage — and used his speech to say Namal will win it, while warning that the NPP is attempting to capture the judiciary.

The man who called the campaign was not there

Namal Rajapaksa announced the 12 September campaign and insisted it would proceed, saying “you cannot scare us by showing us prisons.” He made those remarks from remand custody, where he has been held since his arrest on 4 September over the Airbus matter. The SLPP has called the remand political revenge.

His father appeared in his place. The substitution came on the same day the Attorney General directed the CID to name Namal Rajapaksa as a suspect in the Airbus case before the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court — a development none of the three rally reports mentions.

Two rallies, one farming belt

The SLPP’s event ran on the same afternoon that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was scheduled to address an NPP farmers’ rally in neighbouring Polonnaruwa, marking two years of the government under the theme “People’s Rule – Two Years Strong, Progress for All.” Both events were pitched at the dry-zone paddy districts, and at farmers in particular.

Update (September 13): Mahinda’s own account, in writing

A day after the rally, Hiru News published a message issued by Mahinda Rajapaksa following the event — the first words attributed directly to him about it.

He said the SLPP had launched its “people’s struggle for the nation’s self-respect” from Anuradhapura, and framed the choice of venue around the city’s history, drawing a parallel between the present situation and the Anuradhapura Kingdom’s record of “civilisation, invasions, resistance, betrayals, collapse and resurgence.” He said internal enemies who betray the country for personal gain pose a greater danger than external threats, and that every citizen must cultivate a sense of belonging to the country, criticising those who justify betrayal and spread falsehoods.

This resolves part of what the day’s reporting left open, but not all of it. The remarks came in a message shared after the rally, not from the platform — so it remains unreported whether the former President addressed the gathering himself. It does, however, supply the campaign’s own name for what it launched, which none of Saturday’s dispatches carried.

Not reported

None of the three same-day reports gives an attendance figure, a start or finish time for the rally, or a full list of speakers beyond the Mihintale organiser. None says whether Mahinda Rajapaksa addressed the gathering or only attended, and none carries any quotation from him — the central figure in all three headlines goes unquoted.

No report states what resolutions, demands or next steps the campaign adopted, whether police imposed conditions on the event, or whether any incident occurred. There is no government response, and no outlet reports on the competing Polonnaruwa rally in the same dispatch.

NewsFirst says only that “several SLPP representatives addressed the rally” without listing them, and Hiru’s follow-up carries a written message rather than a speech, so the question of whether Mahinda Rajapaksa spoke from the platform remains open across all four reports. Of the individual speeches, only Archchuna’s was filed on the day; Hiru published Wimal Weerawansa’s attack on the government’s “black state” crackdown the following morning, and no other outlet has carried it.

Ada Derana’s site returned a CloudFront block throughout the cycle and could not be checked. Colombo Gazette had not filed on the rally at the time of writing.

Sources