“Every President wanted to finish the war. But in the 2005 election manifesto, Rajapaksa said he will have peace talks with Prabhakaran.”

“When the army was chasing the LTTE, he didn't even know what was happening on the ground in 2007. He did not even allocate money for ammunitions. I was recruiting additional 85,000 army men. When I became commander I recruited 4,000 men in a month. Earlier only 3,000 people joined the army for a year.”

“I planned the entire operation and I was communicating with all levels of army persons.”

Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa attributed Maithripala Sirisena's victory to the votes from "Eelam", referring to the Tamil votes.

While addressing his supporters in Medamuluna, Rajapaksa told crowds said that he was only defeated in the North, East and Estate districts.

"Nothing went wrong. If you look at the map won by President Maithripala you can see that is also very much equal to the Eelam map. That speaks all about it. It is not an accusation. Everybody has the right to vote. It is a matter that minority political parties basically worked on separatism. Because Sampanthan is seriously talking in parliament about the division of the country and at the same time they talk about full autonomy and federal system. Chandrika being a champion of federalism I won’t be surprised at the outcome. That made the difference. 450,000 votes came from the North and East."