Calls within UNC executive to discipline Ganga Singh

This was his comment yesterday when asked what he would do if MPs of the UNC parliamentary caucus refused to recognise him as their Chief Whip and blank the caucus meetings called by him.

UNC MPs supportive of Basdeo Panday took a decision to boycott the parliamentary caucus called by Chief Whip Ganga Singh, sources said yesterday.

At the meeting, only six MPs showed up and it had to be cancelled because of the lack of a quorum.

Singh, who himself did not attend the meeting, said yesterday that he did not interpret the absence of so many MPs as a sign that he had lost their confidence. "Maybe it is because they have a fear and are intimidated by some people," he said.

Told that Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday had said that he was not concerned with the issue of who was Chief Whip because he was involved in "bigger things," Singh said this was a recognition (by Panday) that he (Singh) was right from the inception when he said that the Opposition Leader could not dismiss him as Chief Whip.

But Singh is not out of the woods. At Wednesday’s meeting of the UNC executive, there were several calls for Singh and his executive — which announced that it would be boycotting the Mid-Centre Mall rally — to be disciplined. Sources said Wade Mark was particularly vocal on the issue. Sources said the executive seemed bent on going in this direction until Captain Gary Griffith intervened to state that all acts of indiscipline had to be dealt with. Griffith, according to sources, cited actions taken by Deputy Political Leader Jack Warner, who attacked party members on the issue of the inquiry into the recount, and also criticised Political Leader Winston Dookeran, saying that he was weak; that he would hardly talk at internal meetings, and when he talked no one understood him. Griffith said that while Singh’s attack was a "veiled" one, Warner’s attack on Dookeran was naked.