Arukathu Patabendige Jagath Pushpakumara, commonly known as Jagath Pushpakumara (), is a

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

n politician and Member of Parliament.

Political career

In 1993, Pushpakumara started his political career as the Wellawaya Electoral Organizer for

Sri Lanka Freedom Party The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP; ; ) is a centre-left political party in Sri Lanka. Founded by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in 1951, the party was one of Sri Lanka's two main parties from the 1950s to the 2010s, serving as the main rival of the c ...

(SLFP). Then he became a Date Central Committee Member from 2010 to the present. During that same time, he worked as the SLFP Deputy Secretary from February 2015 to 2018. Apart from them, he was an active member of several committees including; the Committee on Public Enterprises, Committee on Public Petitions and Ministerial Consultative Committee on Labour. In the second government under President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Pushpakumara was appointed as the Minister of Coconut Development. On 28 December 2015, Pushpakumara arrived at the Presidential Commission of Inquiry Into Large-scale Corruption and Fraud. In 2016, he was investigated for allegedly using over Rs.5 million rupees of government money to buy land under his wife's name. That same year, his official residence in Wijerama Mawatha was damaged by an electrical fire. In 2020, he made a controversial statement at a public election rally that there was a conspiracy to assassinate him. Pushpakumara contested the 2020 parliamentary election as a

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna The Sri Lanka People's Front (; ), commonly known by its Sinhalese name Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), is a political party in Sri Lanka. It was the ruling party in Sri Lanka from 2019 to 2022 and was the largest party in Parliament of Sr ...

(SLPP) candidate in Monaragala District and was elected to the

Parliament of Sri Lanka The Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව ''Śrī Laṇkā Pārlimentuvā'', Tamil: இலங்கை நாடாளுமன்றம் '' ...

, finishing the fourth among the SLPP candidates. On 22 February 2022, he was appointed as the new Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions for the Second Session of the Ninth Parliament. In May 2022, it is reported that SLFP representatives

Nimal Siripala de Silva Nilenthi Nimal Siripala de Silva (born 6 September 1944) is a Sri Lankan politician who held a number of senior cabinet portfolios. He currently serves as the disputed chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. He served as the Leader of the Op ...

Mahinda Amaraweera Mahinda Amaraweera ( Sinhala:මහින්ද අමරවීර,Tamil: மஹிந்த அமரவீர; born 12 February 1962) is a Sri Lankan politician. He was the cabinet Minister of Agriculture. He is also a member of the Parliame ...

Duminda Dissanayake Duminda Dissanayake (born 28 March 1979), Member of Parliament, MP, is a former Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister of the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources Management, Ministry of Irrigation, former Minister of Agriculture, deputy minister of ...

, Jagath Pushpakumara and

Lasantha Alagiyawanna Senanayake Alagiyawanna Mohotti Appuhamillage Lasantha Alagiyawanna (born 19 October 1967), also known as Lasantha Alagiyawanna (), is a Sri Lankan politician. He was a representative of the Gampaha District for the Sri Lanka People's Freedom All ...

have decided to go beyond the party decision and take over the ministries of the new government under

Ranil Wickramasinghe Ranil Wickremesinghe (; ; born 24 March 1949) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the ninth president of Sri Lanka from 2022 to 2024. He has also served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1993–1994, 2001–2004, 2015–2018, 2018-2019 a ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pushpakumara, Jagath Living people 1963 births Members of the 10th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 12th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 13th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 14th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 16th Parliament of Sri Lanka Government ministers of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Freedom Party politicians United People's Freedom Alliance politicians