Kamla: No rift with Ramesh

Maharaj was readmitted to the party last week and Saturday’s “From Democracy to Dicatorship” meeting in Couva was his first public outing as a UNC member.

The former attorney general was expelled from the UNC in 2001, shortly after he was fired from the Basdeo Panday Cabinet for charging that nothing was being done to investigate allegations of corruption made against ministers of the then UNC government.

Maharaj, Persad-Bissessar, UNC deputy leader Jack Warner and Couva South MP Kelvin Ramnath were advertised as the main speakers at Saturday’s meeting.

Those advertisements were carried extensively in the print and electronic media. Only Maharaj, Warner and Ramnath addressed the meeting and no explanation was provided by UNC officials on Saturday night about why the Opposition Leader was not present.

Persad-Bissessar explained that she was invited to attend an Indian Arrival Day dinner hosted by the National Commission for Indian Culture in Chaguanas on Saturday around the same time as the UNC meeting in Couva and could not attend the latter. Warner supported Persad- Bissessar’s statement, indicating that he believed she had an Indian Arrival Day function to attend on Saturday night.