Humour on the campaign trail!

Numerous anecdotes woven around politicians daily entering the public discourse these days have become a welcome diversion for they add a humorous or a comic touch to the prevailing election fever and excitement in the country, they say.


The controversy over the alleged Treasury Bonds scam that began several weeks ago is still raging and the opposition politicians have discovered this issue is ideal grist to their anti-government propaganda mill. However, most politicians know that this talk about the sale of Treasury bonds and insider trading allegations is Greek to the ordinary people. 

Opposition politicians know that the subject goes over the heads of the ordinary people. Yet they seem to presume that the people would come to believe the government has done something terribly wrong if they keep on criticizing it.  The government politicians too, not to be outdone, have made it a practice to tell the people some tall story in response.

A certain Deputy one from yahapalanaya hailing from the Puttalam district wanted to defend his party leadership on the bond issue. Addressing a public meeting he said: “Friends, the Opposition is using this bandhanagara bandumkara (prison bonds) issue to sling mud at the government. But there had been no fraud or corruption involved in this transaction!”

Perhaps, the Deputy may have presumed that it would not matter to his peasant constituents who knew next to nothing about bonds whether he called them bandhanagara (prison) bonds or bhandagara (treasury) bonds!