Disciplinary Committee will decide fate of Jack & Ramesh: Panday

Basdeo Panday is washing his hands from the latest fracas in his United National Congress (UNC) and leaving the fate of dissident MPs Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and Jack Warner in the hands of the party's disciplinary committee.

The committee is likely to be headed by Orlando Nagassar, Chairman of Panday's Couva North Constituency and comprise members sympathetic to Panday.

Expulsion seems imminent since the UNC's constitution provides for any member to be expelled if a disciplinary committee finds that the member took part in any activity likely to damage the image of the party.

The matter that will be before the committee is Sunday's fist fights and scuffles at the entrance to party headquarters, when Warner and Maharaj attempted to have their supporters attend a party congress.

"This party will not be governed by mob behaviour," Panday said Monday night. He said he is "taking the issue to the wider community to explain that supporters of Ramesh Maharaj and Jack Warner could not have been allowed inside the meeting, because the rules state that only delegates from the party would be allowed to be at the meeting."

Panday was speaking at a meeting in Debe. He said he was "surprised and shocked" to see Mayaro MP Winston "Gypsy Peters" among the dissenting group and suggested that Gypsy had been "brainwashed".

He insisted that Warner and Maharaj "were not locked out and I want the public to know that the accusation is not true. How can you hold a meeting to discuss anything with a mob?"

He told supporters he was told that there were people from Laventille among the unruly crowd whose sole purpose was to disrupt the congress.

The UNC leader insisted, "They are not hurting me. What they are doing is destroying the foundation upon which they, both Warner and Maharaj, were given safe seats at the 2007 election. We may have to look elsewhere at the next election."

Read the Trinidad Express editorial: UNC bacchanal must stop