Alahapperuma started his career as a journalist, working at
Lakmina before joining
Divaina as an editor. He entered parliament for the first time in
1994 after topping the Matara preferential vote as a
People's Alliance candidate with 76,678 votes. He was re-elected in
2000 and served in the short-lived
11th Parliament of Sri Lanka. He was also appointed Deputy Minister of Samurdhi, Rural Development, Parliamentary Affairs & Up-country Development. He surprisingly decided not to contest the 2001 General Election. He said he was 'too white' to be in the parliament referring to corruption. He was elected to Sri Lanka's
13th Parliament as a
UPFA National List MP on 19 December 2005, winning by-polls on a seat that had fallen vacant following the assassination of then Foreign Minister
Lakshman Kadirgamar. He was appointed the Minister of Transport in 2007. He re-entered parliament in
2010 as a National List MP representing the UPFA and was subsequently appointed Minister of Youth Affairs. He voted in favour of the Eighteenth Amendment which gave the Executive President a wide range of powers including removing the term limit for re-election. In 2015, he voted in favour of the
Nineteenth Amendment under President
Sirisena which curtailed presidential powers. He contested the
2015 parliamentary election as a UPFA candidate from Matara district and received 105,406 votes to enter parliament. In August 2016, he resigned from the Matara District SLFP leadership post. In 2019, he was appointed the Minister of Sports along with two other portfolios of Ministries of Education and Youth Affairs. Alahapperuma contested the
2020 parliamentary election as a
SLPP candidate from the Matara district and received 103,534 votes to enter parliament. He voted in favour of
Twentieth Amendment which repealed 19th Amendment and restored more powers to the Executive President. In August 2020, Alahapperuma was appointed Minister of Power. In the August 2021 cabinet reshuffle, he was appointed Minister of Mass Media. He resigned from his cabinet portfolio in April 2022 as the
2022 Sri Lankan political crisis deepened amid
civil protests. In July 2022, following the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Alahapperuma announced that he would run for president in the upcoming
presidential election to elect Gotabaya Rajapaksa's successor. Alahapperuma was backed by Leader of the Opposition
Sajith Premadasa and SLPP Chairman and MP Professor G. L. Peiris. Alahapperuma lost the election to acting president
Ranil Wickremesinghe. On 31 August 2022, Dullas Alahapperuma and 13 others left the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and crossed over to the opposition as an independent MP. Two days later, Alahapperuma's faction launched a new political party, the
Freedom People's Congress. ==Family==