JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — President Anura Kumara Dissanayake telephoned Fisheries Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar on Friday morning to ask what had caused the turmoil that brought a district coordinating committee meeting in Kilinochchi to an abrupt end a day earlier, the minister said, as the fallout from the confrontation continued to reverberate across Sri Lanka’s north.
“The president called me this morning and spoke to me,” Mr. Chandrasekar said at an event in Jaffna. “Yesterday’s incident had also surprised the president. I explained to him what actually happened there.”
The Kilinochchi District Coordinating Committee meeting was suspended midway on Thursday after a series of heated exchanges involving Ramanathan Archchuna, an independent member of Parliament. Elected representatives and senior government officials walked out before the police intervened.
The episode quickly became a political controversy, with claims circulating on social media that Mr. Chandrasekar had tried to assault a lawmaker. The minister rejected the allegation on Friday.
“Rumours were spread that I had attempted to attack a member of Parliament,” he said. “But I am not such a person. Fighting with anyone or becoming involved in confrontations is not in my nature.”
Mr. Chandrasekar then turned to the government’s anti-corruption campaign, warning that those who had misused public money in the north would eventually face investigation.
“All corrupt individuals from the Jaffna District who have looted public money will certainly have to face investigations,” he said. “This is Anura Kumara’s government. There is no room for fraud here.”
District-level branches of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption would be established, he said, allowing residents to lodge complaints directly about suspected wrongdoing.
Mr. Chandrasekar also invoked the legal troubles of two former presidents to underscore what he described as the government’s willingness to enforce the law regardless of a person’s political standing.
“Ranil Wickremesinghe counted prison bars,” he said. “Mahinda Rajapaksa, too, may find himself in a position where he has to count prison bars. When we enforce the law, we never consider a person’s status or standing.”
The minister was speaking at the launch of the first phase of a 35 million rupee livelihood programme run by the Northern Provincial Ministry of Women’s Affairs. The programme provided sewing machines and support for goat farming to 130 female-headed households and women entrepreneurs in the Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts.
The president had also asked him to collect accurate data on female-headed households and women living in poverty in Jaffna, Mr. Chandrasekar said, as the government prepares to make poverty reduction a priority in the coming year.
“My ministerial position does not belong to one particular political party alone,” he said. “Our primary objective is to serve all people without discrimination.”
