The bold and beautiful actress defying decorum had in a vulgar exhibition aimed at demonstrating her affinity to the president held on to his hands for quite a long time for an unusually long time in an over – friendly manner.

According to some cinema artistes who were disgusted by this behaviour Ms. Weeraratne apparently was attempting to create an impression of her closeness to the Country’s executive president.

The incident happened on December 24th at a ceremony held at the Presidential secretariat in Colombo to honour veteran actress Malini Fonseka.

The Queen of the Sinhala cinema had won the Silver peacock award at the Indian Film Festival held in Goa for her fantastic portrayal of a senior actress Sandha Devi in the film “Akasa Kusum” (Flowers in the sky) that was directed by her brother in law ,Prasanna Withanage.

The manner in which Sangeetha Weeraratne behaved with the President. at the event made onlookers laugh at the scene and cast amused looks.

The President himself was visibly uncomfortable by this third – grade performance by the attractive actress and was heard to complain later she was an embarrassment to him.

The smooth functioning of the programme was further hampered when the organisers caused a factionalising of the artistes.

The event was to be held in the ground floor of the Presidential Secretariat. The organizing committee consisted of Dulles Alahapperuma, Ravindra Randeniya, Rohana Weerasinghe and Jackson Anthony.

At the event organized by a committee consisting of artistes themselves, the organisers managed to divide the local artistes as VIP artistes and Non-VIP artistes.

The VIP artistes were allocated the ground floor of the Secretariat while the non VIP artistes were assigned to the upper floor.

However, the important factor is that several artistes who worked for the President during the last presidential election were seated on the upper floor in the non VIP artistes section.

Sriyantha Mendis, Budhdhdasa Vithanachchi, Anarkali Akarsha, Dharmasri Wickremasinghe, Tennyson Cooray were among those seated on the upper floor. G.R. Perera, Sangeetha Weeraratne, Bandhu Samarasinghe and Sanghadasa were seated on the ground floor among the VIP artistes.

Although there were several empty seats on the ground floor, no one invited the non VIP artistes to take seats among the VIP artistes.

However, after a few minutes, the non VIP artistes on the balcony started to criticize the situation. They started to whisper about it and the news immediately reached the organizing committee.

Weerasinghe, from the organizing committee immediately went up to the balcony and invited the artistes to take seats on the ground floor after apologizing for the faulty seating arrangement.

"No, no we will watch from up here since we are no longer important. The important people downstairs can continue with their work," Vithanachchi said.

Weerasinghe quickly turned and went back down. After presenting Fonseka with the award, all artistes were invited for high tea at the Presidential Secretariat.

The artistes who were seated on the balcony kept silent and stayed aside during the tea party.