?Po­lit­i­cal leader of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Bas­deo Pan­day will not be moved to the back­bench­es when his ap­point­ment is re­voked. "Not at all, not al all," she said when asked about the is­sue yes­ter­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to re­place Pan­day as Op­po­si­tion Leader this week, af­ter a let­ter is sent to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, in­di­cat­ing that she had the sup­port of most of the Op­po­si­tion MPs. Per­sad-Bisses­sar se­cured the sup­port of the eighth MP, Ca­roni East MP, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, at the week­end. Pan­day said yes­ter­day he was com­mit­ted to serv­ing his con­stituents, and would have more time to do so in the com­ing days. He said he was con­vinced that the UNC, which he es­tab­lished 20 years ago, was go­ing to "crack up," based on the de­vel­op­ments tak­ing place in the par­ty.

He said, how­ev­er, he was pre­pared to adopt a "wait and see" ap­proach, and "was not too con­cerned with where I sit. Those mat­ters are child­ish mat­ters. I am more con­cerned with what I say when I speak." When Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sumes the role as Op­po­si­tion Leader, she'll be cre­at­ing his­to­ry as the first woman in T&T to hold that of­fice. Seat­ing arrange­ments in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives are ex­pect­ed to change as well, as Per­sad-Bisses­sar will move to her right and take the seat oc­cu­pied by Pan­day. Cou­va South MP Kelvin Ram­nath, who re­mains loy­al to Pan­day, said weeks ago that he would be pre­pared to move to the back bench­es when Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­came Op­po­si­tion Leader.