Rajapaksa ally, strong links to India: Meet Dinesh Gunawardena, new Sri Lanka PM

Here's everything you need to know about Sri Lanka's new Prime Minister, Dinesh Gunawardena, who is not only Rajapaksa's close confidante but also has strong ties to India.

Veteran politician Dinesh Gunawardena has been appointed as the new prime minister of Sri Lanka after Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the Lanka President. Gunawardena, a former foreign affairs and education minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, has a strong India connection and has been vocal about solidifying the island nation's relationship with India.

A stalwart of Sri Lankan politics, Gunawardena, 73, was appointed as home minister in April by then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. With a relatively clean image, Gunawardena has served as a cabinet minister for over 22 years. During his stint in politics, he has publicly argued for having a better relationship with India.

Dinesh Gunawardena is also believed to be a close confidant of the ousted Rajapaksa family, who faced nationwide protests over the country's worsening economic situation. Protesters succeeded in removing Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, but many want Wickremesinghe and others they see as allies of the family gone too.

Dinesh Gunawardena's family also has close links to India. His father, Philip Gunawardena, who is known as the father of socialism in Sri Lanka, was a classmate of Jayaprakash Narayan and VK Krishna Menon at the University of Wisconsin.

Philip Gunawardena advocated for freedom from imperialism and later led the Anti-Imperialist League of India in London.

Philip Gunawardena and his wife, Kusuma, had reached India after escaping from Sri Lanka (then a British colony, Ceylon) during the Second World War.

They joined the underground activists fighting for their freedom and were apprehended by British intelligence, who imprisoned them in a Bombay jail in 1943. After a year, they were deported to Sri Lanka.