The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe - Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development
The Minister spoke during Votes of Condolence for former MPs Kumara Welgama, H. Nandasena and Tudor Gunasekera. He recalled working with Welgama after entering Parliament in 2004 and described his political activism and public role, and also noted his association with Nandasena in the North Central Provincial Council and Parliament despite political differences. He conveyed condolences to their families and colleagues, particularly on behalf of Anuradhapura representation for Nandasena.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, today we consider Votes of Condolence for former MPs Hon. Kumara Welgama (Kalutara), Hon. H. Nandasena (Anuradhapura) and Hon. Tudor Gunasekera (Gampaha).
¶ 02 In 2004, when I first entered Parliament, I had the opportunity to associate with Hon. Welgama and later to work with him while he was Minister of Industrial Development. He was a vibrant, sometimes controversial character, but through his activism and performance he left many political memories for society. We express our condolences.
¶ 03 Regarding Hon. H. Nandasena of Anuradhapura, I worked alongside him when he served as a Provincial Minister in the North Central Provincial Council around 2012-2017 while I was a Provincial Councillor. He was active both in provincial governance and social work, and later as an MP. Though we differed politically at times, we engaged actively in public affairs. On behalf of Anuradhapura representation in this House, I express condolences to his family and colleagues. I fall silent in respect.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 10 January 2025 ·No. 1737366385042716 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/22215
Cite as: The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe - Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 10 January 2025. No. 1737366385042716. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/22215