Lalith and Premadasa assassinated, I make my first foray in politics

The DUNF entered the provincial council elections with much hope.

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We had outstanding leaders in many of the districts that we contested. Lalith contested the Colombo district and his campaign entered high gear though we were constantly warned that he was in danger of an attack by Premadasa's goons. Premachandra contested Kurunegala and Gamini moved to Kandy with his wife Sirima leading our Nuwara Eliya contingent.

I too decided to contest from Kandy district and was confident of being returned because of the splendid response from my voters. I chose Harispattuwa which was an electorate with a large number of voters though it was equally segmented by Goigama, other caste and Muslim voters. The Buddhist priests in the electorate backed me which worried Hameed who used to gather their votes as a supplementary to his Muslim votes which put him easily over the top.

Then tragedy struck. Lalith who was an indefatigable campaigner was assassinated while addressing a meeting at Kirulapone. Our fears were about his earlier meeting which was held in Hulftsdorp close to Sucharitha - the home of the President. He had worn a bulletproof vest for this meeting but had relaxed after an uneventful finale and had taken it off for the last ill organized meeting at Kirulapone, which was held under lights as it was already dusk when it began. A moving assassin had shot him in the chest and Lalith's bodyguard had returned fire and wounded him.

But the shooter had disappeared in the melee. As soon as I heard of this disaster I abandoned my campaigning and returned to Colombo to find our party in a state of shock and convinced that the dirty work was the work of the President and his supporters. Our Central Committee met and issued a statement which virtually accused the President of the murder of our leader. This obviously worried Premadasa who denied the charge and at a public meeting soon after made a heartfelt plea to the nation to absolve him. Little did we know that he would, within days, meet a similar fate himself.