Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed as the Prime Minister through the back door on October 26, today lost the sixth consecutive vote in Parliament.

Rajapaksa suffered a humiliating defeat this morning itself when 122 MPs from the UNP, the TNA and the JVP supported a motion seeking to cut off budgetary allocations to cabinet, state and deputy ministers of the purported government.

When the motion was put to vote, 122 MPs voted in favour of it. UNP MP Sujeewa Senasinghe was absent in the House while the voting was in progress.

UNP Parliamentarian Patali Champika Ranawaka presented a motion to Parliament this morning and the UPFA MPs supporting Rajapaksa did not attend the sessions today as well.

Six UNP MPs, namely Rajitha Senaratne, Ravi Karunanayake, Patali Champika Ranawaka, Arjuna Ranatunga, Mano Ganesan and Jayampathy Wickremaratne submitted the motion to the Secretary-General of Parliament, last week, seeking to restrict all ministry secretaries from accessing public funds to pay salaries and emoluments of all ministers, state ministers, deputy ministers and members of their personal staff.

The motion also prohibits ministry secretaries from defraying their expenses incurred in foreign travel and internal air travel.