> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Vasudeva Nanayakkara Finds a New Government to Defend - URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/vasudeva-nanayakkara-finds-a-new-government-to-defend/ - Published: 2026-09-27T00:45:49.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-27T00:47:33.000Z - Author: Aruliniyan Mahalingam - Tags: Special Article, September 2026 **COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —**Vasudeva Nanayakkara, a former cabinet minister who spent nearly two decades defending the Rajapaksas, has now rallied to the defence of Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power government, pledging to protect it against an alleged conspiracy by wealthy and “reactionary” forces angered by its crackdown on crime and the illegal flight of money overseas. "We will take every necessary step to defeat the conspiracies being carried out against the National People's Power government and to protect this government," Mr. Nanayakkara, the founder of the Democratic Left Front, told reporters. He said the authorities had significantly curtailed the drug trade, brought back several criminal suspects who had fled the country, and acted against people accused of illegally transferring large sums of money abroad. He accused wealthy and conservative interests of joining forces to topple the administration and stir public unrest. He offered no evidence for the claim. Mr. Nanayakkara also cited the Pandora Papers, the 2021 investigation into the offshore dealings of political and business figures around the world. He said that as a member of Parliament he had raised questions about money taken out of Sri Lanka, and that previous governments had failed to recover it. He did not mention that he sat in the cabinet of one of those governments when the Pandora Papers were published, or that the Sri Lankans most prominently named in them belonged to the family of the president he was serving. The leak, released in October 2021 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, named Nirupama Rajapaksa, a cousin of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and her husband, Thirukumar Nadesan. According to the leaked files, the couple controlled a shell company used to buy luxury apartments in London and Sydney, and Mr. Nadesan used offshore companies and trusts to pursue consulting contracts from foreign firms doing business with the Sri Lankan government. A longtime adviser to Mr. Nadesan put his wealth at more than $160 million as of 2011, the consortium reported. Mr. Nadesan denied wrongdoing and asked the president for an impartial inquiry. President Rajapaksa ordered the Bribery Commission to investigate and report within a month. Ms. Rajapaksa had served as deputy minister of water supply and drainage from 2010 to 2015\. When her name surfaced in the leak, the Minister of Water Supply was Mr. Nanayakkara. Mr. Nanayakkara, 87, and Mahinda Rajapaksa both attended Richmond College in Galle, where Mr. Nanayakkara was several years ahead of the future president. Both men entered Parliament in 1970. For much of his career, Mr. Nanayakkara was a dissident of the left. After the 1989 election, he and Mr. Rajapaksa traveled to Geneva to raise concerns about families affected by the state's suppression of the JVP uprising. He later broke with President Chandrika Kumaratunga over privatization and her handling of the civil war, and was suspended from the Lanka Sama Samaja Party in 1999\. He had also taken Ms. Kumaratunga to court, accusing her of abusing her office to let associates profit from state assets. He joined Mr. Rajapaksa's camp after Mr. Rajapaksa won the presidency in 2005, and returned to Parliament from Ratnapura District in 2010 on the ticket of the Rajapaksa-led United People's Freedom Alliance. From November 2010 to January 2015, he was Minister of National Languages and Social Integration, the cabinet post responsible for postwar reconciliation. Two decades after taking complaints of state abuses to Geneva, he told the Daily FT in an interview during that tenure that Western countries raised human rights concerns about Sri Lanka as part of a push for regime change while ignoring abuses by their own allies. In the same interview, he said the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake had been handled correctly. He used that interview to condemn a hate campaign against Muslims by sections of the Buddhist clergy, and he joined other left-wing ministers in publicly opposing government moves to dilute the 13th Amendment, which provides for devolution to the provinces. He remained in the cabinet. After Mr. Rajapaksa lost the presidency in 2015, Mr. Nanayakkara was among the leaders of the "Mahinda Sulanga" campaign to return him to power. During a heated exchange in Parliament in January 2017, Mr. Nanayakkara said the prime minister had the police chief, the attorney general and the Bribery Commission under his buttocks. When government ministers asked whether he was under Mahinda Rajapaksa's buttocks, he replied that it had been "a great blessing." In May 2015, months after Mr. Rajapaksa's defeat, Mr. Nanayakkara clashed with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on the floor of Parliament and called him “pakaya,” a Sinhala slang term for the male genitals used as a coarse insult. The next day, Mr. Wickremesinghe returned fire, calling Mr. Nanayakkara, then 78, a “dried pumpkin” who had lost the prime of his life. “This is how defeated people behave,” the prime minister said. Many viewers detected something less botanical in the prime minister’s choice of vegetable, though Mr. Wickremesinghe never clarified whether the innuendo was intentional. Mr. Nanayakkara professed himself baffled. He told the Deshaya newspaper that he could not understand what the prime minister meant, then supplied his own explanation: perhaps the United National Party was collecting pumpkins for a *mala batha*, the meal served after a funeral. When President Maithripala Sirisena dismissed the prime minister in October 2018 and installed Mr. Rajapaksa in his place, Mr. Nanayakkara accepted a cabinet post, becoming Minister of National Integration, Reconciliation and Official Languages. He held the position from Nov. 4 to Nov. 15, 2018. Under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, he became State Minister of Water Supply Facilities in November 2019 and cabinet Minister of Water Supply in August 2020\. In October 2020, he voted for the 20th Amendment, which restored sweeping powers to the presidency. He had publicly objected to its provision allowing dual citizens to hold office and had suggested the change was meant to enable Basil Rajapaksa's return to Parliament. He dropped the objection after he, Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila met the president on the eve of the vote. He broke with the Rajapaksas only as the economy collapsed. In March 2022, while still Minister of Water Supply, he accused Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa of advancing American interests and said he would stop attending cabinet meetings. He left the ministry in April 2022\. The following year, he was among the lawmakers present at the launch of a book by Mr. Weerawansa, where Mr. Weerawansa alleged that the United States ambassador had played a role in a conspiracy to topple Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Mr. Nanayakkara's nephew, Harshana Nanayakkara, has served as Minister of Justice and National Integration in the NPP government since November 2024\. Mr. Nanayakkara is also the *sambandhi* of former Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, a Tamil term for parents whose children are married to each other In his remarks, Mr. Nanayakkara acknowledged that Sri Lankans continued to face economic hardship, including high prices for essential goods, inflation, and unemployment. He argued that removing the government was not the answer and that its development and investment plans should be given time to take effect. "Not all problems can be completely resolved within two years," he said. "This government is operating under an enormous economic burden. Therefore, it should be given more time."