Sri Lanka coup: Rajapaksa sworn in; concerns rise as pro-India Wickremesinghe sacked

A diplomatic embarrassment is in the making as BJP lawmaker Subramanian Swamy became the first Modi government MP to congratulate former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has been sworn-in as country's new Prime Minister by President Maithripala Sirisena, in an apparent coup attempt by the President on Friday.

"My friend Mahinda Rajapaksa has just been sworn in as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka," tweeted BJP's MP in Rajya Sabha, soon after visuals of Rajapaksa being sworn in front of Sirisena started doing rounds of social media.

The BJP MP had played host to Rajapaksa last month, when the former President had been invited to deliver a lecture at an event organised by Swamy's outfit Virat Hindustan Sangam.

The ousted Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, seen as pro-India, has challenged the validity of the decision and called for a floor test in Parliament.

“I am still the Prime Minister of this country,” local media quoted him as saying.

Wikremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) has 106 seats in the Parliament, seven short of a simple majority.

Sirisena's political front United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka Freedom Party, on the other hand, have a combined strength of 95. Formerly allies, Sirisena and Rajapaksa had fallen out after Sirisena successfully challenged the former president at the 2015 presidential elections. Sirisena had served in Rajapaksa's cabinet during his 10-year presidency till 2015.

The unity government was formed in 2015 when Sirisena (leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party -SLFP) was elected President with Wickremesinghe's support, ending a nearly decade-long rule by Rajapaksa. India's inputs had been considered crucial at the time in bringing together Sirisena and Wickremesinghe to take on Rajapaksa.
Friday's development came after Sirisena's political alliance announced that it had decided to quit the current unity government with prime minister Wickremesinghe's UNP.

A statement from India's Ministry of External Affairs was still awaited at the time of publishing this report.

The news of Rajapaksa assuming the Prime Ministership again is however being viewed with concern among India's strategic experts and democracy activists in Colombo, who have termed Sirisena's decision as illegal.

Political analysts said Sirisena's move to install Rajapaksa as the prime minister could lead to a constitutional crisis as the 19th amendment to the Constitution passed in 2015 had taken away the president's power to sack the prime minister.

“Political coup in Sri Lanka returns China’s favorite to power: No sooner had Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s party withdrawn support to President Sirisena’s party than Sirisena stuns everyone by appointing ex-President Rajapaksa (accused of presiding over war crimes) the new PM,” tweeted strategic expert Brahma Chellaney.

Under Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka had turned increasingly towards China for economic support and had even leased the port of Hambantota on the island's south, much to India's discomfort. Rajapaksa is further accused of presiding over war crimes during the country's bloody civil war with the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE).

The attempted coup follows months of differences between Wikremesinghe and Sirisena, which became ever more apparent after the ruling coalition suffered major losses to Rajapaksa's newly-formed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna in the local body elections in February this year.

In widely reported remarks that he later denied, Sirisena reportedly accused India's spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) of plotting to assassinate him.

The reported remarks were made during a cabinet meeting on October 16, days preceding the visit of Wikremesinghe to India, where he met PM Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj among dignitaries.

Incidentally, a top cop in Sri Lanka was arrested earlier in the day in the same case.

Seen as pro-India, Wikremesinghe had been batting for increased Indian involvement in island nation's infrastructure projects, which Sirisena had been opposing.