| The Honourable Dinesh Gunawardena MP |
|
|---|---|
| Cabinet Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Areas Development | |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality | Sri Lankan |
| Political party | Mahajana Eksath Peramuna |
| Alma mater | Royal College, Colombo, University of Oregon |
| Occupation | Politics |
Dinesh Chandra Rupasinghe Gunawardena ( born 2 March 1949) is a Sri Lankan socialist politician. He is a Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister, Govt Chief Whip and as well as leader of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (People's United Front). He is the third son of Philip Gunawardena and Kusuma Gunawardena.
Contents |
He received his schooling at Royal College, Colombo. He went for higher studies to the Netherlands, where he received a Diploma in International Business from the Netherlands School of Business and to the USA, obtaining a BBA degree from the University of Oregon.
Returning to Sri Lanka, he entered politics in 1973, becoming Leader of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) that year. He contested the general election of 1977 unsuccessfully, but won a bye-election for the Maharagama constituency in May, 1983 and was elected a Member of Parliament. He was an active member of the Opposition, which was outnumbered 5:1 in the House.
In 1989, he contested the General Election from the MEP in the Colombo District, and was successful in returning to Parliament under the Proportional Representation.
In 1994 he contested the General Election in the Colombo District once again, but was unsuccessful.
In 2000, MEP was a constituent party of the People's Alliance (PA), and he was again elected in the General Election from Colombo District. He was appointed Minister of Transport on 19 October 2000. On 14 September 2001, the subject of environment was added to his portfolio.
In 2001 he was elected again from the Colombo District in the General Election, but the defeat of the PA meant that he once more sat in the Opposition.
In 2004, MEP as founding and constituent party formed the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), and was elected as the vice-president of UPFA. He again contested the General Election successfully from the Colombo District. He was appointed Minister of Urban Development and Water Supply and Deputy Minister of Education on 4 October 2004. On 22 November 2005, he resigned from the position of Deputy Minister of Education.
In the Cabinet re-shuffle of February 2007, he was appointed Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Areas Development.
He is also the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee of Electoral Reforms.
In 2008 he was appointed as the Chief Government Whip of Sri Lanka Parliament and immesnly contributed towards the success of the Government while leading the government benches in Parliament at crucial and decisive debates and votes.
He has always played dominant and significant roles at presidential elections in Sri Lanka in support of candidature of the main progressive party, maintaining the firebrand oratorics on political platform while immensely contributing to the success of Hon Hector Kobbekaduwa in 1983, Hon Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1988, HE Chandrika Kumaranatunga in the decisive 1999 elections, and in the triumphant of HE Mahinda Rajapakse in 2005 & 2010.
On 8 February 2010, Dinesh Gunawardena was awarded the 'Leadership Award for Pro-Poor Policy Implementation' in Mumbai, India.
In 2010, he contested the General Election from the Colombo District under the UPFA banner, and was successful in obtaining over one-hudred thousand preferential votes and be elected to the Parliament for the 6th time. Subsequently, the he was appointed as the Minister of Water Supply and Drainage, and remains to be the Chief Government Whip of the 7th Parliament of Sri Lanka.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||