Panday dismisses UNC dissatisfaction

OPPOSITION Leader Basdeo Panday said he had no moral ambiguity regarding his support for suspended UNC MP for Fyzabad Chandresh Sharma and his condemnation of “independent UNC MP” for Pointe-a-Pierre Gillian Lucky. Speaking with Newsday yesterday, the UNC leader dismissed reports which alleged that there were UNC members who were expressing their dissatisfaction about how he handled those matters. Sharma was suspended from the service of the House of Representatives on May 20 after he failed to apologise in accordance with a resolution passed by the House on May 6, after the Privileges Committee report into the September 2004 tea room incident involving Sharma and Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley was passed.

Despite his suspension and against the advice of his party, the Fyzabad MP threatened to attend last Friday’s (May 27) sitting of the Lower House but never carried out his threat. At a news conference at the Opposition’s Port-of-Spain offices on May 27, Sharma said he decided to abide by the party’s wishes and not attend Parliament. Lucky fell out with the UNC leadership after she signed the Privileges Committee report, in spite of a position taken by the UNC’s parliamentary caucus that its two MPs on the committee (Lucky and Princes Town MP Subash Panday) should not sign the report.

Panday (S) signed the report and following a heated caucus meeting at Rienzi Complex in April (at which the UNC leader told Lucky that “politics has a morality of its own,”) Lucky and Barataria/San Juan MP Dr Fuad Khan declared themselves “independent UNC MPs.” Panday said there was no moral ambiguity involved in his actions in either case and he was at a loss to understand how anyone could think that there was. In the case of Sharma, the UNC leader reiterated his support for the Fyzabad MP’s stand against House Speaker Barry Sinanan’s ruling and his decision to heed the party’s advice to stay away from Parliament. However in Lucky’s case, Panday explained there was a clear “act of indiscipline” because she disobeyed the party’s advice and signed the Privileges Committee.

He claimed that unlike Lucky, Sharma obeyed the UNC’s advice in his situation. “I don’t see any conflict,” the UNC leader said. As for Lucky and Khan, Panday announced the appointment of UNC CEO Dr Tim Gopeesingh and Jamal Mohammed as “caretaker MPs” for their respective Pointe-a-Pierre and Barataria/San Juan constituencies. Contrary to Panday’s statements on this issue, Fuad Khan said there was no provision in the UNC’s constitution for caretaker MPs and Gopeesingh and Mohammed could not perform the legitimate functions of a Member of Parliament.