Gail Alexan­der

"Mr Pan­day, the door is open, you can leave!" That's the "in­vi­ta­tion" which act­ing Chief Whip Har­ry Par­tap ex­tend­ed to for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day at Wednes­day's par­lia­men­tary cau­cus when Pan­day and oth­er MPs called for an in­quiry in­to al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the re­cent UNC elec­tion.

Af­ter Par­tap's re­mark, how­ev­er, he (Par­tap) with­drew the state­ment and apol­o­gised for it. UNC MP Kelvin Ram­nath, who com­plained about the new lead­er­ship's re­fusal to en­ter­tain the pub­lic in­quiry, yes­ter­day not­ed Par­tap's com­ment to Pan­day. And Pan­day, as well, said he had not­ed Par­tap's "rud­ness." (sic). Oth­er mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive and cau­cus al­so spoke about it – some laud­ing Par­tap for be­ing "strong," oth­ers crit­i­cis­ing the re­mark. Yes­ter­day, Par­tap re­fused to de­ny or con­firm he had told Pan­day to leave. Par­tap said he did not want to com­ment on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is­sue fur­ther since leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­ready had spo­ken about it. Par­tap act­ed as par­ty whip, chair­ing UNC's par­lia­men­tary cau­cus on Wednes­day in the ab­sence of new whip Jack Warn­er, who left for Zurich on foot­ball busi­ness on Tues­day.

Par­tap said yes­ter­day Warn­er was ex­pect­ed back in time for to­day's Low­er House sit­ting where an Elec­tions and Bound­aries 2009 or­der will be de­bat­ed. The or­der pre­scribes polling sta­tion shifts to sev­er­al con­stituen­cies. Par­tap said UNC MP Sub­has Pan­day – head of UNC's Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment plan­ning team – would lead off Op­po­si­tion re­ply in the de­bate. How­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion team would ap­pear in the House to­day amid the back­drop of Wednes­day's con­tentious cau­cus where for­mer leader Pan­day, his broth­er Sub­has, daugh­ter Mick­ela and UNC Sen­a­tor Adesh Nanan left af­ter their mo­tion for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to UNC's elec­tion was re­fused by Par­tap and the new UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion. If Warn­er does not ar­rive in time for to­day's House, Par­tap, as act­ing whip, may have to sit next to Pan­day (in the whip's front row seat) since Pan­day con­firmed he would at­tend to­day's House. Ram­nath said yes­ter­day he al­so left Wednes­day's cau­cus due to the "ar­ro­gance of act­ing whip Par­tap." Ram­nath added: "It is now clear that any­thing Pan­day rais­es they will put it down and they are go­ing to lengths to dis­cred­it and dis­re­spect him.