SJB chose blue as its colour, court document reveals

Madduma Bandara says what matters is present green and yellow SLFP says it does not know its party colour had been hijacked

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) led by Sajith Premadasa had selected the colour ‘Blue’ in seeking to register its party constitution with the Elections Commission, a court document has revealed.

The SJB also had sought to register as a party, instead of an alliance, the documents submitted to the Elections Commission have revealed.

The revelations were made in the order issued by District Judge Amali Ranaweera rejecting an injunction order sought by SJB General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara preventing the expulsion of their members from the United National Party (UNP).

Mr Madduma Bandara has filed an appeal against the order in the Colombo appellate High court. The appeal is due to be taken up for hearing tomorrow.

The order said that though the petitioner claimed that the UNP Working Committee had given consent to register the party and that the party symbol was decided upon by the Working Committee, no specific date as to when the approval was granted had been mentioned.

The petitioner had relied only on newspaper articles re l ated to a Working Committee meeting reported to be held on February 2, 2020 without submitting the minutes of the meeting, the order noted.

In the order, the Judge held that some of the facts had been suppressed and misrepresented and thereby the injunction order sought was rejected.

The order said in seeking an injunction it was the duty of the petitioner to submit all factual points in the case.

The order also noted that though it is stated that the Election Commission acknowledged that the party c h a i r man was Sajith Premadasa and the General Secretary was Ranjith Madduma Bandara, the UNP Working Committee had not taken any decision regarding these positions.

T he UNP Wo rk i n g Committee had also not taken a decision regarding the SJB symbol when the Elections Commission accepted the SJB symbol.

Though it was claimed that an MOU had been signed in forming the alliance no such MOU had been submitted while a constitution for the party had been prepared and submitted to the Election Commission by March 2, 2020. The UNP had not been cited as a party of the alliance.

It had also been stated that the UNP was contesting under the SJB alliance, but the UNP had decided to contest separately, the order noted.

The order said that while discussions were underway with the UNP Working Committee to contest as an alliance, the petitioner and others had gone on to register the SJB as a party and inform the Election Commission of the intention to contest the 2020 Parliamentary elections and thereby it was a violation of the party ( UNP) constitution.

Mr Maddumba Bandara reacting to the order yesterday said the party colour was now green and yellow, but declined to comment about the previous request.

Another member of the SJB, Ashoka Abeysinghe, said “previous colours do not matter, but now our colour is green and yellow and the symbol telephone.”

SJB lawyers said their appeal was based on rejecting the order that they filed the case in the District Court by a suppression of facts and interalia, that the UNP had not followed its constitution in sacking its members.

Meanwhile, SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekara said, “I was unaware that some other party was trying to use blue as their party colour, blue is the colour of our party (SLFP). Party colour is distinctive to each party. The color represents the party and helps to identify it.”

“A party cannot use the colour of another party. I will look into this. We will also write to the Election Commission about this.”