A taste of your own medicine, perhaps?

My dear Keheliya,

I am writing this to you not knowing where I should send it. I suppose Prison Hospital is the best bet. That is where you politicians go whenever you are detained, not to the actual prison unless of course you happen to be an opposition politician at the time like SB, the Field Marshall or Ranjan.

You must have been surprised at this turn of events. You were loudly protesting your innocence in Parliament and ridiculing the opposition after defeating the vote of no confidence brought against you by the telephone chaps.

There was a lot of anger against you even after that. Many thought Uncle Ranil will either ask you to resign from the Cabinet until this human immunoglobulin issue was investigated or even sack you. He did nothing of the sort. Instead, he gave you a different ministry, to look after the Environment!

You thought you could wait for these headlines to be forgotten like you have done before. That was when you bullied the Principal of Royal College to withdraw charges against your son, also when that son tried to open an aircraft door to go to the toilet and then when you fell off a balcony in Melbourne.

So, we know that controversy and twisting facts to suit your needs is not new to you. You may have thought you can hoodwink a magistrate, first trying to be an ‘aggrieved party’ in the case against you and then saying you were too busy to record a statement because you had to attend a Cabinet meeting.

The least you could have done, Keheliya, was to attend those meetings. When the magistrate checked and found out that you hadn’t, there was no turning back. So, in what must be a first for this country, not only was a sitting Cabinet minister arrested, he was also denied bail and taken into custody.

It would have been great if you attended a Cabinet meeting while being in custody. There is nothing wrong with that either. After all, we have ‘Kappam’ Prasanna and Choka malli in Parliament already. Ah, but then, that would have let the cat out of the bag because you are too sick for that, remember?

You managed to get out of jail, literally and metaphorically, by going to Prison Hospital. It is funny, isn’t it, Keheliya, how you are fit enough to discharge a Cabinet minister’s duties one day but sick enough to be hospitalised, the next? Doctors who come to such conclusions must be richly rewarded!

There must be some hope, being in hospital. You can compare notes with your former colleague Duminda, about living life to the maximum in hospital while in custody. He can teach you a thing or two because he has perfected that art, having to spend the rest of his life under a death sentence.

Despite all this, I feel Uncle Ranil still has a soft spot for you. He roared like a lion and sacked Roshan on the spot after that chap criticised Sagala and Shammi. Yet, you are arrested while being a sitting Cabinet minister and he is as quiet as a mouse and didn’t sack you, waiting until you resigned.

Where to from here, you might ask, Keheliya. Looking on the bright side, all this fuss about human immunoglobulin has given you a lot of free publicity. This will help you at the next election. Most of it may be negative publicity but for our politicians, any publicity is better than no publicity at all.

When it is time for a general election, you wouldn’t have any difficulty in getting nominations from the ‘pohottuwa’ party because your conduct is quite the norm for them. Getting elected from the Mahanuwara District shouldn’t be too difficult either: they elected Mahindananda and Lohan too!

History seems to be repeating itself for those from Mahanuwara. During JR’s time EL was accused of manipulating a tender. He was shifted from the Health Ministry to the Agriculture Ministry before he resigned. Now, JR’s nephew has shifted you from Health to Environment. You then resigned!

For now, Keheliya, all you need to do is lie low and let this pass. For all the drama about your historymaking arrest, it may amount to nothing. Remember the big fuss that was made when Ravi was implicated in the infamous Central Bank bond scam? Well, he has been acquitted and discharged now.

The one statement that you might regret though is when you said that all those who enter hospitals are not supposed to leave them alive. That is why funeral undertakers set up shop in front of most hospitals, you said. Just check your surroundings outside the Prison Hospital, will you, Keheliya?

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: You may be wondering why Uncle Ranil didn’t intervene to prevent your arrest. That is so that he can take the credit, pretending to be totally impartial, sacrificing you in the process. That is what you tried to do too, sacrificing your officials in the process. What goes around, comes around, Keheliya.