Differently abled to contest two districts at upcoming GE
Agroup of differently abled people, who would be re-writing political history in Sri Lanka by becoming the first such persons to contest a Parliamentary Election, yesterday slammed all political parties for neglecting them and for their failure to give them their due place in the society.
One of the candidates, Ajith C Perera, who is the Chief Executive of ‘Idiriya’, an organization dedicated to helping differently abled persons, explained that they had decided to contest as the Independent Group 12 from the Colombo District and Independent Group 15 from the Gampaha District,on their own as none of the other political parties had paid attention to the needs of the people that they represent who could be considered the country’s biggest minority which accounts for 20 per cent of the country’s total population. “We could not team up with Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa who wants to rise up again and start afresh or Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who has promised to build a new country within 60 months of coming to power,” he said.
Dr. Perera, who is also a candidate at this year’s election, said not even the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) or Venerable Maduluwawe SobithaThera, who pledged to build a just society, had paid attention to the needs of the differently abled.
Prasanna Kuruppu, another candidate contesting the polls, said President Maithripala Sirisena for his part had failed to live up to his promise to address the issues of preserving the rights of people with restricted abilities by introducing the necessary facilities for them to live normal lives.
The group said the Disabled Rights Bill, which was drafted back in 1997, was yet to get off the ground while Sri Lanka had earned the reputation of being the only country that had not ratified the UN Disabled Charter, which the country signed in 2007.
All the candidates included in the two independent groups contesting the upcoming Parliamentary Elections, suffer from some type of disability.
We could not team up with Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa who wants to rise up again and start afresh or Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who has promised to build a new country within 60 months of coming to power