President Mahinda Rajapaksa had lashed out at a certain ‘telecommunications boss’ following the incident where two satellite TV service providers blocked Sirasa and its affiliated channels during a political talk show that was attended by common candidate Maithripala Sirisena and members of the common opposition.

After the incident, the President had telephoned the “telecommunications boss” to know whether someone had any hidden hand behind the outage. The President, according to sources from Temple Trees, was aware of the fact that it was an act of a “foolish-friend” who wanted to use an axe to kill a mosquito.

The telecommunication boss came up with a lame excuse and said it was a technical failure!

The President was livid at his response and lashed out at him for the problem – which drew a lot of public attention for the programme. Recorded clips of the ‘Satana’ programme went viral on social media and on youtube on Sunday. In addition to the matters that were discussed during the programme, the ‘ban’ itself made headlines mainly in the online media.

Another clip that capturing a telephone conversation that one of the Directors of Sirasa had with a Customer Care agent of Dialog TV went viral on social media over the weekend.

However, those who watched Sirasa and its affiliatedchannels without subscribing to satellite TV service providers managed to watch the programme without any difficulty.