COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The leader of Sri Lanka’s Parliament told the chamber on Thursday that a controversial independent lawmaker from Jaffna was “psychologically affected” and that lawmakers were patiently waiting for him to seek treatment and recover, an unusually personal attack that came during a chaotic exchange over parliamentary decorum.
Bimal Rathnayake, the transport minister and leader of the House, also said the conduct of the lawmaker, Ramanathan Archchuna, was insulting to “the entire community,” an apparent reference to Sri Lanka’s Tamil community.
The confrontation began during question time, when Mr. Ramanathan sought permission to ask supplementary questions. The Speaker, Jagath Wickramaratne, allowed him to proceed but ruled him out of order after he raised matters the Speaker said were unrelated to the question before the House.
Mr. Ramanathan persisted, prompting an increasingly heated intervention from the chair.
“Do not behave in a way that makes Parliament a laughingstock,” the Speaker told him. “Do not cause disruptions. Do not behave like a fool.”
The remark drew an immediate objection from Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the opposition, who challenged the Speaker’s choice of words.
“No one should speak in a manner that insults a member of Parliament,” Mr. Premadasa said. “While occupying the chair, it was inappropriate for the Speaker to call M.P. Archchuna a ‘fool.’ Such language is unbecoming of the House.”
Mr. Rathnayake then rose to respond, saying it was surprising to hear the opposition leader lecture the chamber about parliamentary order when, he said, some opposition lawmakers had been disrupting proceedings since the morning.
“The degrading conduct of some opposition members is not broadcast by the media, but the walls of Parliament know what has happened,” Mr. Rathnayake said.
He also questioned Mr. Premadasa’s defense of Mr. Ramanathan, pointing to a previous confrontation between the two men.
“The leader of the opposition is now speaking in support of M.P. Archchuna,” he said. “The people of this country know how these two clashed with each other in the past.”
The reference appeared to be to Mr. Ramanathan’s first day in Parliament, in November 2024, when he occupied the seat traditionally reserved for the leader of the opposition and initially refused to move, leaving Mr. Premadasa to take another seat.
Mr. Rathnayake then turned to Mr. Ramanathan’s mental state.
“M.P. Ramanathan Archchuna is psychologically affected,” he said. “We are patiently waiting in the hope that he will receive treatment and recover.”
The Speaker then disclosed that another Jaffna lawmaker, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the Tamil National People’s Front, had formally asked not to be seated beside Mr. Ramanathan.
Mr. Wickramaratne said Mr. Ramanathan had behaved improperly in the chamber and had directed “extremely degrading remarks” at him. He said Mr. Ponnambalam had written to say that he could no longer sit beside Mr. Ramanathan and that the seating arrangement had subsequently been changed.
In a letter dated June 23, Mr. Ponnambalam accused Mr. Ramanathan of repeatedly abusing him from the neighboring seat, using derogatory language, and making threats of violence at district coordinating committee meetings and on social media. He told the Speaker that sharing a parliamentary bench with Mr. Ramanathan had become untenable.
The acrimony between the two Jaffna lawmakers has also spilled beyond Parliament. At a district coordinating committee meeting in Tellippalai in June, Mr. Ramanathan was recorded referring to Mr. Ponnambalam as a “dog.”
Mr. Ramanathan, a first-term independent lawmaker whose confrontational style has repeatedly generated controversy inside and outside Parliament, has faced disciplinary action before.
In March 2025, the Speaker suspended the broadcast of his parliamentary speeches for eight sitting days and ordered earlier remarks removed from the official record after Mr. Rathnayake sought action over a sexually violent remark directed at Swasthika Arulingam, a human rights lawyer.
Two months later, in May 2025, Mr. Ramanathan was ordered to leave the chamber under Standing Order 71 after another confrontation during parliamentary proceedings.
Mr. Ramanathan has, however, made allegations of misconduct against Mr. Ponnambalam as well. In January, he asked the Speaker to move Mr. Ponnambalam’s seat, accusing him of verbal abuse, and called for his removal from Parliament’s Committee on Ethics and Privileges.
Thursday’s confrontation brought those long-running disputes back into the chamber, but it also raised a broader question about the language used by those responsible for maintaining order in Parliament: The Speaker called an elected lawmaker a “fool,” while one of the government’s most senior parliamentary figures publicly suggested that the same lawmaker was psychologically unwell and in need of treatment.
