Sri Lanka leader urges Modi to help, Prez sacks finance minister

Amid economic and political crisis in Sri Lanka, president Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday sacked his brother and finance minister Basil Rajapaksa and appointed  Ali Sabry - who was the minister of justice till Sunday night.G.L. Pieris will continue as the foreign minister. Sabry and Pieris are part of a team that will oversee debt restructure, key to obtaining support from the IMF. Central bank governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal, who has opposed aid from the multilateral lender, quit separately. Trading was halted on Sri Lanka's stock exchange seconds after it opened Monday when the blue-chip index dropped 5.92 per cent following a mass cabinet resignation in the face of an economic crisis.

In the context of all Cabinet Ministers resigning, I have today submitted my resignation as Governor, @CBSL to HE President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. @GotabayaR #SriLanka #GoSL

— Ajith Nivard Cabraal (@an_cabraal) April 4, 2022

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to try and help the island nation to "the maximum possible extent" amid the worsening economic crisis. According to agency report, in his nassage to Modi Premadasa said that please try and help Sri Lanka to the maximum possible extent. This is our motherland, we need to save our motherland. He termed the en masse resignation of the cabinet a “melodrama enacted to dupe” the people of the country. Premadasa said that the resignations are not a “genuine effort” to bring relief to Sri Lanka but “an exercise in fooling” them. Premadasa argued that Sri Lanka is calling for a “pathbreaking wholesale change” that would bring relief to its people and not to politicians. He said politics is not a game of musical chairs where politicians exchange their position.

“We want resignations and then we want a political model that works. A new Sri Lanka will begin with stronger institutions and not just a change in leadership. An interim Government is nothing but Internal party politics,” the Samagi Jana Balawegaya tweeted. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has invited the opposition parties to join the unity government to find a solution to the national crisis. In a letter to all political parties, Rajapaksa attributed the current crisis to “several economic and global factors.” Western diplomats in Colombo have expressed concern over the use of emergency laws that allow the military to arrest and detain suspects and said they were closely monitoring developments.