Sri Lankan Parliament will not be convened before Nov 16: UPFA party leader

Sri Lanka's suspended Parliament will not be convened before November 16, a senior leader from President Maithripala Sirisena's UPFA said on Thursday, hours after officials at Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's office said the House will meet on Monday.

Susil Premjayantha, a senior parliamentarian from Sirisena's United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), said Parliament is unlikely to meet on November 5.

He said that Parliament needs time to prepare to meet and there is not enough time to meet on Monday.

Premjayantha said reports claiming Parliament will meet on Monday were misleading and the House was most likely to meet on November 16, as announced by the president earlier.

Sirisena had suspended Parliament till November 16 after Wickremesinghe sought an emergency session to prove his majority.

The president is facing increasing political and diplomatic pressure to reconvene Parliament which he had suspended apparently to allow Rajapaksa to engineer crossovers from Wickremesinghe's side.

Meanwhile, Sirisena has sworn in three more Cabinet ministers, four state ministers and a deputy minister, this evening.

The president is keeping open government positions to lure Wickremesinghe lawmakers to join him and provide Rajapaksa with 113 seats to prove the new prime minister's majority.

Wickremesinghe maintains he still commands the majority and remains the legally appointed prime minister.

The ousted premier has already suffered five defections to Rajapaksa.