Focus

It’s carnival time in Kandy

Hikka may have been happening for some people last week but for the powers that be, everything was happening in Kandy.

With the President having decided to camp out in the hill capital for a week – killing two birds with one stone in the process; witnessing the Esala Perahera and also using the opportunity to launch a last minute campaign blitz for the Uva Provincial Council poll ­which was held yesterday – it was all systems go for the local politicians, who were falling over each other to ‘impress’ the Chief Executive.

Overnight, billboards and cutouts sprang up all over the hill capital extolling the virtues of the administration and the many development projects each government politician was claiming to have carried out. However the war victory in keeping with the current trend was the dominant theme in almost all of these cut-outs.

While images of the war heroes only managed to make it to the distant background of the cutouts, the striking feature in each was the larger than life image of the local politician claiming a share of the success by innuendo.

Dominant image

And while each politician clamoured for prime space in strategic places of the town one image that virtually drowned out the rest and flooded the town was that of Central Province Governor, Tikiri Kobbekaduwa.

The man’s mug beaming in various poses had many in the blue camp turning red, one even commenting that there were more cut-outs of the man than there were trees in the scenic hill capital. The upshot of this has been the desecration of the beauty that Kandy is renowned for.

It seems, going purely on the strength of the propaganda campaign in the city and its environs, the Central Province Governor has opened a hitherto unseen chapter in local politics, where the governor of a province openly engages in grassroots party politics.

Kobbekaduwa is a relative youngster serving in the post of governor of a province, which for the most part has been reserved for retiring service personnel or aging politicians who had passed their expiry date in active politics.

It seems for the people of Kandy, accustomed to seeing distinguished persons occupying the governor’s chair since the advent of the provincial councils, it is a case of not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

But crying many were last week, observing the uses to which the Governor’s official residence down King’s Street was being put to, bordering on being turned in to a right royal tavern.

This once stately, colonial building in the heart of Kandy, until the 1970s, served as the central command headquarters of the army. Today sadly one section of it is used as a party campaign office of the Governor while the other serves as a holiday home cum tavern for the UPFA party faithful.

The young governor, many point out, is a law unto himself with allegations being rife that he was using the long arm of the law to further personal interests.

One example that stands out is a carnival the Governor in collaboration with the Chief Minister, Sarath Ekanayake had organised at the Getambe grounds to coincide with the Esala Perahera.

Impunity

Although not seeing eye to eye with the Chief Minister, the ‘Esala Udanaya’ carnival had been organised jointly by the Governor and the Sarath Ekanayake Padanama to run parallel to the Esala Perahera to capitalise on the huge commercial potential with thousands descending on the city to witness the world famous perahera. However the talking point has been the brazen impunity with which the environmental laws were being broken, with the local police accused of turning a blind eye to the violations.

What has got Kandyan eyebrows raised is that while an almost identical carnival being organised by a certain private party at Bogambara ground had been ordered to close up shop by the police at 10 pm in keeping with sound pollution laws that do not permit the use of loudspeakers after 10 pm, the Governor-sponsored carnival was allowed to go on till the wee hours of the morning, notwithstanding such laws. So by 10 pm it was lights out at Bogambara while the party went on at Getambe with loud music blaring even at 3 am. Such is the impunity with which the Governor operates.

Out of luck

It had been with the greatest difficulty that the Bogambara carnival organisers had managed to get their carnival, ‘Daladapura Esala Wasanthaya’ going with the provincial administrators placing barriers at every turn when it came to the required approvals. So much so they had to seek court intervention to obtain even the electricity connection.

In addition there are many other accusations being hurled at the Governor these days. The accusations range from carrying out a vindictive political victimization campaign against political opponents to appointing misfits to key positions in the provincial administration, to destroying the education sector and even admitting children of supporters to leading schools.

Speaking of which at a recent public event at a school in Yatinuwara, the audience had been treated to quite a spectacle as the Governor took it upon himself to blast the principal of the school over a trivial issue.

It has also been alleged that jobs are granted by the Governor only to those from his electorate of Yatinuwara.

Another curious trait of the Governor, it has been pointed out, is that he demands an invitation for every event held in the city. Be it the opening of a latrine or the closure of an open drain, the Governor insists, we have been reliably informed, he has to be invited. Ralahamy has no qualms about the public spiritedness of the Governor in attending every event, in fact he salutes such noble ideals, but the problem it has emerged is that, should there be no invitation forthcoming for such events, the party concerned is unceremoniously listed in the ‘black book,’ the repercussions of which are known only too well.

So while the perahera may have come and gone, atleast for one person in the Central Province, the carnival goes on.