Why Mangala will not sue TNL!: Here's what the Minister has to say

Minister Mangala Samaraweera has directed his lawyers to file cases demanding Rs. 1000 Million from Thiniyawala Palitha Thera for levelling false allegations against him and another Rs. 1000 Million each from Hiru Network head Reno De Silva and Derana Network head Dilith Jayaweera for publicizing the allegations without any verification.

However, while TNL had given more widespread publicity to Thiniyawala Thera’s comments, the Minister failing to take any legal action against the channel is now being questioned on social media. This is because TNL had given the news story almost 4 minutes of air time where the Thera made a number of false allegations against the Minister.

Do people watch that channel?

However, when asked about this, Minister Mangala Samaraweera said TNL is not a channel watched by the people of the country and therefore he felt no need to take legal action against them.

Noting his time as Minister of Media, he said that he was well aware of the ratings of each channel and therefore he felt there was no necessity to waste money to take legal action against a channel like TNL.

Meanwhile, it is reported that a Media Head in the Prime Minister's Media Unit, Ishini Wickremesinghe had intervened and pushed for the clips of Thiniyawala Thera making allegations against Minister Samaraweera to be telecasted on Rajapaksa aligned media. A close associate of Minister Mangala Samaraweera confirmed these reports.

A Personal Grudge

According to him, Ishini Wickremesinghe had once served as the Private Secretary to the Minister and due to a clash of views, she is now harbouring a personal grudge against the Minister.

Support for her Uncle or Gota!

He also added that during a conversation with the Minister, Ishini had once commented saying “If my Uncle does not get the Presidential candidacy, then I will work towards ensuring that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is brought into power." This had led to a heated discussion about bringing a military-like dictator Gotabhaya to power. The Minister had opposed this view saying he cannot condone putting the country’s people in danger in order to gain power. “The Minister had then informed her to resign from the post of private secretary,” he added.

According to him, since then Ishini has been nursing a personal grudge against the Minister. TNL had even aired a special feature during its news telecast thereafter to mark the birthday of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.