The Weligama Pradeshiya Sabha has voted down its own chairman’s 2027 budget by a single vote, Hiru News reported on Tuesday. Twenty-two members voted for the budget and 23 against.

The budget was presented to the council on Tuesday under the leadership of the chairman, Attorney-at-Law Chinthaka Hewapathirana, who represents the ruling party. Hiru reports that a joint opposition group carried the vote.

The arithmetic is the story

Weligama is a 45-member council split 23–22, and that split has now decided two consecutive contests in opposite directions.

In July 2025 the Samagi Jana Balawegaya took the chairmanship from the National People’s Power by 23 votes to 22. On Tuesday the chairman’s budget fell by 22 to 23 — the same margin, the same council, the parties reversed.

The practical consequence is that the NPP holds the chair of a council in which it does not command a majority. A chairman in that position cannot pass a budget without at least one vote from across the floor, and on Tuesday he did not get one.

A Supreme Court ruling makes this dangerous for chairmen — but not yet here

Losing a budget vote is not a routine setback for a Pradeshiya Sabha chairman. In a judgment delivered on 18 June 2026, the Supreme Court held that a chairman who fails to obtain council approval for the annual budget is deemed to have vacated office by operation of law.

A three-judge bench of Justices Arjuna Obeyesekere, Sampath Abayakoon and Sampath Wijeratne ruled unanimously to that effect while dismissing a fundamental rights petition brought by Susantha Gnanaratne, a former chairman of the Hingurakgoda Pradeshiya Sabha, who had challenged his removal after that council failed to pass its 2014 budget. The provision is Section 169 of the Pradeshiya Sabha Act as amended by the Local Authorities (Special Provisions) Act No. 21 of 2012.

The provision carries two conditions, and neither is met in Weligama today. As the Daily Mirror’s report of the judgment sets out, it applies after the first two years of a council’s term, and to a chairman who fails to obtain approval after two opportunities.

This council’s term began in 2025 — its first chairman was elected on 24 July that year — which places Tuesday’s vote roughly fifteen months in, inside the two-year window. It was also a first failure, not a second. On the face of the rule as reported, Hewapathirana does not lose his position over this vote.

That is the correct reading of a provision which, read loosely, would suggest he had already vacated office. It is not a prediction about what a second defeat would do.

How the NPP came to hold this chair

The chairmanship has changed hands twice in a year, once violently.

Lasantha Wickramasekara, the SJB member elected chairman in the 23–22 vote of 24 July 2025 and known as “Midigama Lasa”, was shot dead inside his own office in broad daylight on 22 October 2025. This desk reported in April that police later recovered a body from a well near his residence; he had written to police before his killing, and no arrest had been publicly announced at that time.

The Daily Mirror reported on 12 November 2025 that Sameera Danushka de Silva of the SJB had been gazetted as chairman to fill the vacancy. The Island has since reported that the NPP “captured” the council when Chinthaka Hewapathirana was elected chairman by 22 votes to 21.

These two accounts do not fit together cleanly. The Island describes the chairmanship as having “remained vacant following the assassination”, which the Daily Mirror’s gazette report contradicts. The Island’s filing also carries no retrievable publication date, so the date of Hewapathirana’s election is not established here. What is not in dispute is that he holds the office now and that he represents the ruling party.

Sourcing

Only Hiru News had filed on Tuesday’s vote at the time of writing; searches of the Daily Mirror, Ada Derana, NewsFirst, the Island, the Daily FT and the Daily News returned nothing on it. The Supreme Court judgment and the 2025 chairmanship reports are cited and dated in the text above as background; they are months old and are not counted toward this article’s source rating.

Not reported

Hiru does not name the opposition parties that combined to defeat the budget, give the budget’s total value or any of its contents, or say whether the chairman intends to present a revised budget. Nothing is said about the statutory deadline by which Weligama must adopt a 2027 budget, or what happens to the council’s spending authority in the meantime. No comment from the chairman or from the opposition group appears in any filing.

Sources: Weligama Pradeshiya Sabha 2027 budget defeated by one vote — Hiru News, October 13.