Rajapaksa's decision was to ensure public security and maintain essential services so as to ensure a smooth functioning of the country, the presidential media division said.
The decision was taken during a crucial all-party leaders meeting held earlier in the day.
The dissidents, led by former president Sirisena's Sri Lanka Freedom Party, would leave the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna coalition with its 14 Members of Parliament, party sources said after their meeting with the President on Monday.
The economic situation has led to huge protests with demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
As angry protests calling for Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation grew, supporters of Sri Lanka's ruling party stormed a protest site in Colombo on Monday, attacking anti-government demonstrators and clashing with police.
A spokesman of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) said a video released by Ajith Dharmapala, a former police officer, claimed that President Rajapaksa was staying at the house belonging to Pathirana.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered his condolences to his Indian counterpart and said there is no greater loss than losing one's mother.
"President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa is still in the country, I made a mistake in the (BBC) interview," Speaker Abeywardena told ANI in a telephone call.
Sri Lanka's main Opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) on Tuesday handed over to the parliamentary Speaker motions of no-confidence against the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) coalition government and embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, even as the government announced the appointment of a cabinet sub-committee to look into the proposal for a new Constitution.
The five-time prime minister was re-appointed to the job on May 12 following the political circus precipitated by the unprecedented economic crisis in the island's history.
The 73-year-old leader on Thursday emailed his resignation letter to the Speaker soon after he was allowed by Singapore to enter the city-state on a "private visit".
Two months after the protests in Colombo began over Sri Lanka's terrifying economic crisis, the daily demonstrations outside the presidential palace and other government buildings refuse to die down.
Sri Lanka's embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, under immense pressure from the public and the Opposition to quit over the island nation's worst economic crisis, said on Thursday that the abolition of the executive presidency, a move that will curb his powers, will be considered by Parliament.
The Government also defended the President's decision to enforce a state of emergency, that had given him sweeping authority to act in the interests of public security and preserving public order, including suspending any laws, authorising detentions and seizing property, saying it was declared after attempts were made to attack the President's Office and other public property.
'Never expected, and never in history, not a single country has extended that kind of assistance'
There have been growing calls for President Rajapaksa's resignation over the past few weeks over his government's mishandling of Sri Lanka's worsening economic crisis.
Thousands of protesters in Colombo broke through police barricades and stormed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's official residence in the Sri Lankan capital, demanding he resign and accept responsibility for the island's gravest economic crisis that has caused thousands of Sri Lankans to live on one meal a day.
The SLPP, led by prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, has won in 145 constituencies, bagging a total of 150 seats with its allies, a two-thirds majority in the 225-member Parliament, according to the results announced by the election commission.
Sri Lankans were on the edge on Tuesday as they waited whether embattled Gotabaya Rajapaksa will honour his offer to resign as president, amid signs that key members of the erstwhile powerful ruling family were attempting to flee in the face of massive public anger against them for mishandling the economy that has bankrupt the country.
Sri Lanka's new Finance Minister Ali Sabry on Tuesday resigned, a day after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed him after sacking his brother Basil Rajapaksa amidst the island nation's worst economic crisis.
The protests brought home the fact that the Sri Lankan public is in no mood for halfway measures, as voices against Rajapaksa 'family rule' and 'securitisation' of the civilian administration began sidestepping the more critical economic crisis, affecting the nation and afflicting the individual, observes Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rajapaksa has departed from the Maldives on Saudi Airline flight SV 788 to Singapore, sources said.
The protests seem unlikely to end until the people's anger and grievances with the leaders who have brought Sri Lanka to economic ruin are redressed.
India on Sunday said it stands with the Sri Lankan people in their aspirations for prosperity and progress through democratic means, established institutions and constitutional framework.
A former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam child soldier-turned-politician was acquitted by a court in Sri Lanka on Wednesday in the 2005 murder case of a senior ethnic Tamil lawmaker at the height of the country's bloody civil war.
Sri Lankan national Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, who was lynched by a mob in Pakistan's Punjab province over allegations of blasphemy last week, was buried according to Buddhist and Catholic rites at Ganemulla, a suburb north of Colombo, on Wednesday.
Hundreds of Sri Lankans thronged buses in the capital Colombo on Thursday, May 12, 2022 to return to their hometowns during a brief relaxation in curfew, imposed after the prime minister quit and went into hiding.
Ranil Wickremesinghe was on Wednesday elected as Sri Lanka's new President by Parliament, in a rare move that could provide continuity for ongoing discussions with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout for the cash-strapped nation but a development likely to anger anti-government protesters who have been demanding his resignation from office for weeks.
The 73-year-old United National Party was appointed as the prime minister by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa after they held closed-door discussions on Wednesday.
Pompeo said that the United States was deeply saddened to learn about the passing of Mukherjee.
In the endlessly entertaining and absorbing soap opera that is India-Sri Lanka relations, wait for the next episode, Aditi Phadnis reports.
A Saudi airlines flight -- SV 788 -- carrying Rajapaksa landed at the Singapore Changi International Airport shortly after 7 pm (local time).
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed as the country's acting president after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives on a military jet on Wednesday in the face of a public revolt against his government for mishandling the economy that has bankrupted the country.
President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Rajapaksa will transform Sri Lanka's political landscape after Thursday's electoral triumph, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran Colombo watcher.
Political analysts said Sirisena's move to install Rajapaksa as the prime minister could lead to a constitutional crisis as the 19th amendment to the Constitution would not allow the sacking of Wickremesinghe as the premier without a majority.
The ex-president returned to Sri Lanka on a Singapore Airlines flight.
Democratic Left Front politician Nanayakkara was among the 42 members who declared independence in Parliament from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) coalition.
China will not be allowed to use the southern port of Hambantota for military purposes, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said, apparently attempting to allay fears in India and the United States about China's increasing maritime presence in the strategic Indo-Pacific region.
Thirteen people accompanied Rajapaksa to the Maldives. They arrived in an AN32 aircraft, according to TV news channels.
Whatever its apprehensions and concerns about the regime of the Rajapaksa clan, India must be ready with unconditional assistance when Colombo asks for it. Because it will, observes Aditi Phadnis.
