Mahinda Rajapaksa to visit India today; first visit since being appointed Sri Lanka's Leader of Opposition

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s Opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa is set to visit India, his office has said. This will be Rajapaksa’s first overseas tour since being appointed as the Leader of the Opposition last month. [caption id=“attachment_1653185” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Mahinda Rajapaksa. AFP[/caption] He will leave Friday on an official tour to India, his office said. Rajapaksa is to deliver a lecture on Sri Lanka-India relations in Bangalore, it added. This will be his second visit to India within the last six months. In September, he visited New Delhi and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rajapaksa was controversially appointed the prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena in late October, triggering an unprecedented constitutional crisis which lasted for over 50 days. The Supreme Court later restored of Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister.