No Tamil or Muslim political party had proposed any changes to the elevated status awarded to Buddhism in Sri Lanka’s constitution.
This information was revealed by Anura Kumara Dissanayake who participated as a Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) parliamentarian in a top level cross party committee tasked with drafting a new constitution.
Addressing a packed house of Buddhist monks on Friday (23), presidential candidate of National People's Power (NPP) emphasised that no political leader who took part in the committee that drafted a new constitution raised the issue of removing the foremost place given to Buddhism.
“Mr. Sumanthiran participated, Mr. Hakeem participated, Mr. Mano Ganesan participated. None of them proposed to amend article 9 of the constitution, which means that the new constitution was drafted while protecting article 9 as it is,” said Dissanayake.
He slammed scaremongers who claim that the NPP in power would do away with the constitutional guarantee.
“I would like to say in front of our venerable monks that it will remain the same. Because, everybody representing that constitutional committee did not raise it as an issue.”
The NPP candidate hailed the Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka as a ‘progressive movement’ that has done a yeoman's service to save the country from danger.
