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A three judge bench appellate Sri Lankan Court dismissed a petition challenging the citizenship of Gotabaya Rajapaska, a candidate for presidential election. He became a very popular face amongst the Sinhala Buddhists, who consists of the majority due to his incredible efforts in facilitating the twenty six year old civil war in 2009 to terminate. He is considered to be one of the persons behind bringing in peace for about a period of ten years after the war till the terrorist aided Easter day suicide bombings on 21st April, 2019 which is reported to kill more than 250 people in Sri Lanka. It is noteworthy to point that this judgement would remove the barrier, with respect to contesting the election, which he had previously faced in November, 16 presidential polls.
Prior to 2005, he held an United State citizenship. He had obtained the Sri Lankan citizenship way back in 2005. However, his then newly acquired citizenship was challenged on the ground that it was improperly obtained by the petitioners of the case- Gamini Viyangoda and Chandraguptha Thenuwara. He revoked his Sri Lankan citizenship in 2003, with the motive of applying for the U.S. citizenship. However, he returned to Sri Lanka in 2005 and obtained a dual citizenship of Sri Lanka and the U.S. But according to the Sri Lankan laws, a person who holds a dual citizenship or is not a citizen of Sri Lanka cannot contest any national elections. Thus, in order to contest the national election he revoked the U.S citizenship in the mid of the current year.
Interestingly, he did not only had to overcome this legal battle over citizenship, allegations against him have been reported charging him of misappropriation of funds. Some considers the case as a conspiracy against him, facilitating his defeat in the Presidential elections that took place in November, 16.
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