Former NCP Chief MInister Berty Premalal Dissanayake said that the much publicized raid on three government stores had got nothing to do with his election campaign and it is an injustice to blame him.

“The raids were carried out on government storerooms. These are warehouses that equipment for projects that have begun as far back as ten years ago is stored and they continued to be stored there. They have got nothing to do with my campaign. These projects are continuing,” he said.

Dissanayake said that all of the equipment stored in the warehouses was for very specific projects.

“These can’t be used for election purposes. The solar power lamps were stored in order to give energy to people who didn’t have electricity and that has been going on for close to a decade. There were water filters stored for kidney patients as well. None of these can be just given out to supporters of mine. Any citizen of the province has to be registered and certified in order to receive them” he said.

He further said that this was an attempt by those who wanted to stifle his election campaign.

“Many can’t bear the fact that we will win this election by a huge margin, which is why they are alleging me. This equipment can’t be doled out like giving mammoty heads prior to an election. They are for used for specific purposes and are to be given under guidelines that have been in place for a long period of time. This is a great injustice and I urge releant people to take steps to rectify this”

Meanwhile the elections department said that the the three stores belonging to the government alleged to have contained equipment of Chief Minister of the North Central Province Berty Premalal Dissanayake will be sealed until the department ascertains the purpose for which they were to be used.

According to sources at the department a raid was conducted on the stores by a special team of 11 members who were sent from Colombo last week.

The stores are alleged to have stored bicycles, solar manufacturing equipment and compost manufacturing equipment among others that are suspected to have been distributed to voters in the night, the department said. (By Hafeel Farisz and Nabeela Hussain)