COLOMBO SRI LANKA – Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickramasinghe has had the opportunity to be one of the two participants in the Queen’s royal funeral as the children of parents who attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The only other person outside of the British royal family to stake this claim is Princess Beatrix who is now the former queen of Netherlands.
President Ranil’s parents who happened to attend the coronation of the queen makes this an unusual occurrence as if he weren’t the president at this time, he would have been able to attend. This being said anyone can travel to London and be there for the funeral but what makes this special is that he is attending as the president and not as some commoner.
It is a unique opportunity to join the British and Sri Lankan history books. President Ranil Wickramasinghe is going to London to attend the royal funeral of Queen Elizabeth. The other person here is Princess Beatrix, the former Queen of the Netherlands.
President Ranil Wickramasinghe’s parents Mr. Esmond Wickramasinghe and Mrs. Nalini Wickramasinghe participated in the coronation ceremony of Queen Elizabeth in February 1952 along with Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake.
Princess Beatrix’s parents have also attended the coronation as royals. They will join the history books as the first people in the history of the world to have such an opportunity.
President Ranil Wickramasinghe recently told his staff about a special event that happened to the then Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake during the Queen’s coronation. It is like this.
At that time, Sri Lanka was a Dominion state under British rule. Among the Commonwealth heads of state who went to the coronation ceremony, horse-drawn carriages were arranged for the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the Pakistani head of state to travel individually. But Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake had to travel with the Prime Minister of Tongo.
This led Prime Minister Dudley to refuse to travel with the tall Tongan head of state. Later Mr. Esmond Wickramasinghe intervened to solve this problem. He intervened and resolved this issue and reserved a horse cart for Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake to travel alone.
By rewriting that history like that, President Ranil Wickramasinghe is going to leave for London to express his condolences on behalf of the Sri Lankan people at the royal funeral of the Queen.
President Ranil Wickramasinghe will be the first person outside the royal family to have such an opportunity in the history of the world.
