Shal­iza Has­sanali

?Con­fu­sion seems to be brew­ing in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) camp.

Sources are claim­ing that par­ty chair­man and Ch­agua­nas West MP, Jack Warn­er, and deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit, were ex­clud­ed from a closed-door meet­ing at Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, on April 1. How­ev­er, act­ing po­lit­i­cal leader Su­ruj Ram­bachan is in­sist­ing the al­le­ga­tions are un­true, and that it's pure mis­chief. Ram­bachan in­sist­ed that as the par­ty picked up mo­men­tum to top­ple the PNM at the im­pend­ing polls, some peo­ple were out to cre­ate con­fu­sion. He said sev­er­al meet­ings were tak­ing place at the re­quest of po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is in Mi­a­mi rais­ing funds for the gen­er­al elec­tion.

She is ex­pect­ed to re­turn home to­mor­row. Warn­er, Ram­bachan said, had at­tend­ed the meet­ing. Asked if he was in­vit­ed, Ram­bachan replied: "No...but all that is mis­chief. "There are sev­er­al events tak­ing place in prepa­ra­tion for the elec­tion, and you will find that will hap­pen for an elec­tion time."

A UNC source said Warn­er and Ou­dit were not in­vit­ed to a meet­ing chaired by Fyz­abad MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma, but made an ap­pear­ance. When Ou­dit tried to en­quire why they were left out, she was dis­missed by a mem­ber. Sources said Ou­dit, who has ex­pressed an in­ter­est in con­test­ing the Pointe-a-Pierre seat, is be­ing op­posed by cer­tain mem­bers. Warn­er, who is due to re­turn from Ko­rea on Wednes­day, could not be reached yes­ter­day for com­ment.

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has giv­en in­struc­tions to get the par­ty ma­chin­ery primed and ready for the elec­tion. She has in­struct­ed Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, Dr Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh, to in­vite all Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tives to nom­i­nate can­di­dates for the ex­pect­ed gen­er­al elec­tions.�April 12 is the dead­line for nom­i­na­tions to be com­plet­ed, while screen­ing starts on April 13. "It is ex­pect­ed that such nom­i­na­tions will in no way com­pro­mise the on­go­ing uni­ty talks be­tween op­po­si­tion par­ties," it added. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has asked the chair­man to ac­ti­vate the UNC Na­tion­al Cam­paign Team and present a re­port with­in 72 hours for the con­sid­er­a­tion of the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive. When she re­turns to­mor­row, she will be step­ping up talks with all oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties to en­sure there are no three way fights against the PNM.