Renu­ka Singh

Fresh in­ter­nal con­flict is threat­en­ing to break the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) apart in the build up to in­ter­nal elec­tions. With just days to go be­fore the par­ty elects its leader, the most­ly clean cam­paign has sud­den­ly turned nasty as one would-be deputy leader was threat­ened for tak­ing sides against in­cum­bent Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The Sun­day Guardian has learned that for­mer sport min­is­ter Brent San­cho aligned him­self with chal­lenger Vas­ant Bharath's Team Re­con­nect and was im­me­di­ate­ly "threat­ened with ex­po­sure" by Per­sad-Bisses­sar's team.

San­cho, the Sun­day Guardian is told, quick­ly with­drew his can­di­da­cy bid and has since left the coun­try.

"I have been told that he would re­turn af­ter the in­ter­nal elec­tion," one UNC in­sid­er said.

With the ru­mour mill in over­drive, no one want­ed to of­fi­cial­ly com­ment on what Per­sad-Bisses­sar's team was al­leged­ly hold­ing over San­cho's head.

An­oth­er in­sid­er close to San­cho, how­ev­er, di­rect­ed the Sun­day Guardian to the Sep­tem­ber 2 is­sue of The Sun­shine news­pa­per, a week­ly pub­li­ca­tion owned by for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Jack Warn­er. The on­ly sto­ry Warn­er's pub­li­ca­tion ran on San­cho that month was his al­leged in­volve­ment in an adult tape.

San­cho could not be reached for com­ment but texted the news­pa­per that he was "in a meet­ing" and there­fore could not talk.

A Team Re­con­nect in­sid­er con­firmed that San­cho made an ap­pli­ca­tion to be on Bharath's slate in the ca­pac­i­ty of deputy po­lit­i­cal leader. He con­firmed al­so that San­cho left the coun­try and in­di­cat­ed that he would re­turn on­ly af­ter the De­cem­ber 5 elec­tion.

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­nied any in­volve­ment in the al­leged threat against San­cho.

"I can­not con­firm that. San­cho is the best per­son to ask about that wouldn't you say?" Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

"I did not even know San­cho was on Vas­ant's team. I do not think I have that kind of pow­er that my dis­plea­sure could force some­one to with­draw from that team," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

With re­gards to the in­ter­nal elec­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was "con­fi­dent" of a vic­to­ry be­cause she still main­tained a healthy ground sup­port from the UNC.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­mit­ted that the par­ty was dis­joint­ed now in the last days lead­ing up to the elec­tion, but she did not feel that that would last long. She is cur­rent­ly cam­paign­ing against deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and for­mer min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in the 2010 in­ter­nal elec­tions, nei­ther Mooni­lal nor Bharath cam­paigned on her slate.

"Vas­ant even re­fused to sign the let­ter to the Pres­i­dent to sup­port me for Op­po­si­tion Leader but af­ter that the par­ty has come to­geth­er and we won the gen­er­al elec­tion," she said.

"Yes it is a chal­lenge, but I have a sol­id track record work­ing in my favour, I was chal­lenged be­fore and no chal­lenge is in­sur­mount­able," she said.

Mean­while, both chal­lengers, Mooni­lal and Bharath, have al­so con­firmed that there has been heat­ed in­fight­ing.

Bharath ac­cused Mooni­lal of "clutch­ing at straws" in an at­tempt to un­der­mine his cam­paign.

"I think he (Mooni­lal) sees that he does not have the sup­port he be­lieved he would have and as the par­ty founder said, he is ir­rel­e­vant," Bharath said.

He said Mooni­lal's sud­den at­tack on him proved that Mooni­lal's own cam­paign was frag­ile.

"He seems to be build­ing his case to re­turn to the Per­sad-Bisses­sar camp be­cause I be­lieve he recog­nis­es that he can­not win," Bharath said.

"He seems to be look­ing for a home and is try­ing to en­gen­der some sort of sym­pa­thy from the Per­sad-Bisses­sar camp," Bharath added.

Mean­while, Mooni­lal is fo­cused on ramp­ing up his cam­paign in the last days be­fore the elec­tion. He said there have been no threats made against him or his team by any­one.

"I think you have to be very strong to try and threat­en me, I am not eas­i­ly threat­ened," Mooni­lal said.