Champika Ranawaka Politician

Ranawaka Arachchige Patali Champika Ranawaka (Sinhala: පාඨලී චම්පික රණවක; born 4 August 1965) is a MP in Sri Lanka, and an Electrical Engineer by profession. Champika held Ministries of Environment and Natural Resources, Power and Energy and Technology, Research and Atomic Energy in the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa.Champika Ranawaka entered the University of Moratuwa, to study engineering, in 1984. As a university student he was involved in political activities. Initially, he aligned with Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a revolutionary Marxist party. However, he ideologically shifted towards Sinhala Buddhist nationalism later on and aligned with Jathika Chinthana group. Due to his involvements with JVP, who had been engaged in an uprising against the United National Party (UNP) government then, Champika Ranawaka was arrested and detained.After released, Champika Ranawaka formed "Janatha Mithro" (People’s friends) group, which is generally regarded as Sri Lanka's first green party, and helped Chandrika Kumaratunga to power in 1994. Then he joined Sinhala Nationalists Thilak Karunaratne and S.L. Gunasekara to form Sihala Urumaya, a Sinhala nationalist party. Sihala Urumaya was later dissolved to found Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) to facilitate Buddhist monks entering the parliamentary in 2004.JHU supported Mahinda Rajapakse in 2005 presidential election. Champika Ranawaka became a prominent figure in the presidential campaign. He was appointed to the cabinet as the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources in 2007. In 2010, he was given the post of minister of Power and Energy and finally the ministry of Technology, Research and Atomic Energy.Over the past two decades, Champika Ranawaka emerged as one of the prominent Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist leaders of Sri Lanka. He is quite vocal against Tamil Separatism and Islamic fundamentalism. However in 2015, Athuraliye Ratana Thero, currently an MP representing JHU, revealed that their party had never spoken of a Sinhala Buddhist base.