Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe urged Sri Lanka's parties Wednesday to work together as he began forming a new government backed by minority Tamils after a surge in support for his reform-driven agenda in parliamentary elections.

Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) more than doubled its seats in parliament in Monday's polls, easily beating the party of Mahinda Rajapakse and dashing the former president's hopes of returning to power.

Sri Lanka's former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse admitted his dream of a political comeback was over Tuesday, conceding defeat in parliamentary elections while his victorious rival appealed for unity.

Only eight months after his shock defeat in presidential polls, Rajapakse acknowledged there would be no swift return to power in the role of prime minister after the party of incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe took an unassailable lead.

A bullish Mahinda Rajapakse said he was confident of staging a shock return to power as Sri Lanka's prime minister in elections Monday held just months after he was toppled as president.

Monitors said the vote, called a year ahead of schedule by President Maithripala Sirisena, was largely peaceful despite some reports of candidates trying to bribe voters.

Sri Lanka deployed thousands of police Sunday in stepped up security on the eve of a general election after the campaign was hit by sporadic violence that claimed four lives.

Police Inspector General N.K. Illangakoon said 63,000 officers were fanning out across the country to guard polling booths and counting centers for Monday's election, while para-military commandos were on alert in case of trouble.

Sri Lanka's former president Mahinda Rajapakse Sunday denied his son was involved in the controversial death of a national rugby player as a magistrate ordered a fresh investigation.

Police said the body of rugby star Wasim Thajudeen will be exhumed Monday for forensic tests after allegations that authorities covered up the investigation during Rajapakse's regime.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire at an election campaign rally in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on Friday, killing a woman and wounding at least 12 people, police said.

The attackers sprayed bullets into the crowd just after Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake left the venue, marking the first major violence ahead of the August 17 parliamentary elections.

Sri Lanka's main opposition party Tuesday scrapped a longstanding promise to give greater autonomy to minority Tamils, as it tries to win over hardline sections of the Sinhalese majority before a general election.

In its manifesto launched in Colombo, former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse's United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) said it would refuse to grant more powers to a local council in the Tamils' northern heartland if it won the August 17 election.

Sri Lanka's former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse formally launched his political comeback bid Friday from the historic Buddhist pilgrim town of Anuradhapura with a call for ethnic reconciliation.

Rajapakse, 69, a staunch Sinhalese nationalist credited with crushing Tamil rebels and ending a 37-year-long separatist war in 2009, is standing for election in parliamentary polls on August 17 after losing a presidential vote in January.

When Balasundaram Rasamalar finally got back her home in Sri Lanka's battle-scarred north after years of military occupation, there was an unexpected problem. The toilet was still in the militarized zone -- where civilians are not allowed.

Sri Lanka's army this year began returning land it has occupied since the end of a decades-long separatist conflict to its original owners in the Tamil heartland of Jaffna.

Sri Lankan police Tuesday made the first ever arrest of a Supreme Court judge who was detained in connection with an alleged sexual assault, an official said.

Sarath de Abrew was arrested following investigations into a complaint that he tried to force a 39-year-old woman to have sex with him on the outskirts of Colombo and beat her up when she refused, a police official said.