The Hon. Rishad Bathiudeen
Rishad Bathiudeen acknowledged the Government’s anti-drug efforts and the President’s stated firmness, but questioned whether ministers were acting consistently and without racial bias. He cited funds allocated under the previous government for Muslim refugee returnees in Jaffna—Rs. 80 million for resettlement and Rs. 40 million for road development—which he said were returned and not restored despite assurances. He urged the Government to stop discriminatory actions affecting returnee communities.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Please give me one minute.
¶ 02 We appreciate your anti-drug actions; the Hon. President is firm. But are those within your ranks equally firm? Some ministers act with racial bias. For example, Rs. 80 million allocated under Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government for refugee-returnee Muslims in Jaffna was returned; when asked, the responsible minister promised to restore it but has not. Another Rs. 40 million for road development for returnees also went back and not restored. I conclude by asking you to stop such discriminatory actions.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Thursday, 19 February 2026 ·No. 23328 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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/lk/speeches/30424
Cite as: The Hon. Rishad Bathiudeen. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 19 February 2026. No. 23328. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/30424