Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Fyz­abad MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to re­main at the UNC's Par­lia­men­tary cau­cus on Wednes­day, say­ing he did not walk out with Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day be­cause the meet­ing was not con­clud­ed.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Shar­ma skirt­ed ques­tions about whether he sup­port­ed Pan­day's call for a pub­lic in­quiry of the par­ty's Jan­u­ary 24 in­ter­nal elec­tions in which Pan­day was de­feat­ed by a mar­gin of ten to one by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for po­lit­i­cal leader. Asked whether he be­lieved Pan­day had a right to walk­out, Shar­ma said: "Every­body has a right to stay or leave. It is not a big deal and it is not a right and wrong is­sue. "If Mr Pan­day con­clud­ed that his con­tri­bu­tion was not be­ing tak­en in­to ac­count then he chose to leave. The sit­ting goes for par­tic­u­lar pe­ri­od and I stayed be­cause the meet­ing was not con­clud­ed."

Asked whether he agreed with Pan­day's state­ments that Per­sad-Bisses­sar could not make de­ci­sions with­out UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er, who was ab­sent, Shar­ma said: "Mr Pan­day makes his de­ci­sions and he doesn't de­pend on any­body. Every­body makes de­ci­sions with­out any­body. "I am not aware that Kam­la can­not make a de­ci­sion with­out Mr Warn­er. If an is­sue re­quires an ex­ec­u­tive de­ci­sion, then there will be con­sul­ta­tion." Oropouche MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who al­so stayed at the meet­ing, could not be reached for com­ment.