Mervyn Silva accuses Rajapaksa of obstructing Northern voters

COLOMBO (News1st): Former minister Mervyn Silva has accused former President Mahinda Rajapaksa's campaign team of obstructing voters in the North from voting during the 2005 presidential poll. "They formed a team internally to discuss how they could prevent the people in the North from voting," Silva said on Tuesday, claiming that a lawyer and the owner of a newspaper were in the team. He alleged that this team had been involved in discussions and had been bribed during the run-up to the election. Former President Rajapaksa, who is now Prime Minister, was first elected to office in 2005 and was re-elected in 2010, before being unseated in 2015, ending a decade long rule. Silva claimed that he had remained silent during the campaign as he had been backing Rajapaksa at the election.