Gail Alexan­der

There is a plot to dis­cred­it and hound out of the UNC for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day and oth­er found­ing mem­bers who did not sup­port new leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar in par­ty elec­tions, UNC MP Kelvin Ram­nath said yes­ter­day.

Ram­nath made the claim fol­low­ing crit­i­cisms by Per­sad-Bisses­sar and deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal of Pan­day and oth­ers at a Tabaquite meet­ing. Ram­nath said he was un­cer­tain he would be present for UNC's mo­tion in Par­lia­ment to­day re­gard­ing Ude­cott board mem­bers. Ram­nath said he usu­al­ly left at 4.30 pm, but would "play it by ear" to­day. On Mooni­lal's call for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against Pan­day and Ram­nath, the lat­ter said: "There's a plot to dis­cred­it Pan­day and my­self and any­one whose knees didn't bend to them af­ter the UNC elec­tion. "My friend Roodal Mooni­lal nor any of them were found­ing mem­bers of UNC that's why they seem to be aim­ing their guns at the two re­main­ing UNC found­ing mem­bers in Par­lia­ment. They must feel guilty they con­tributed noth­ing to build­ing the par­ty."

He claimed Mooni­lal was com­pelled to speak out to make up for at­tacks he had made on Per­sad-Bisses­sar when Mooni­lal had head­ed Pan­day's elec­tion cam­paign.

Ram­nath said: "My friend Roodal now has to demon­strate he is no longer loy­al to Pan­day who he once claimed was his 'men­tor and fa­ther' who got him a schol­ar­ship to Hol­land, via the sug­ar union, to study." "It is re­gret­table that my friend whose po­lit­i­cal ca­reer came to the fore un­der Pan­day now has to sing for his sup­per in the par­ty by at­tack­ing Pan­day." He added: "They should be spend­ing their time try­ing to ful­fill the promise of uni­ty they made in the elec­tion and unit­ing the UNC is the first step to uni­ty. Peo­ple can't have uni­ty with UNC when we have prob­lems.

"UNC is go­ing through a ma­jor change and peo­ple are ex­cit­ed abut the fu­ture and they ought to be build­ing the par­ty on that wave rather than re­open­ing old wounds and cre­at­ing oth­ers." "They should not be try­ing to de­stroy the good name of a man who spent his life strug­gling for the dis­pos­sessed and build­ing oth­er peo­ple's po­lit­i­cal ca­reers," Ram­nath added.