Barbados Today

PORT OF SPAIN – The brother of Congress of the People (COP) leader Prakash Ramadhar yesterday renewed his call on the COP leader to resign and for the party to remove itself from the People’s Partnership.

Kishore Ramadhar, COP secretary for education and research, laid blame on his brother for the COP’s defeat at the local government elections and for destroying the party and everything it stood for in terms of principles.

Kishore yesterday gave the media a copy of a motion that calls on Prakash and the entire COP executive to resign within seven days, having accepted full responsibility for the COP’s failure at the election.

The motion calls for an interim management committee to be established to manage the party until fresh COP internal elections take place.

This is the second time Prakash’s brother has moved a motion for his removal. He did so in July this year but it was defeated.

At a news conference yesterday at the COP Flagship House, St Clair, Kishore, together with COP members Rudolph Hanamji, chairman of the COP Diego Martin

West Council; Satu Ann Ramcharan, COP founding member; Kirt Sinnette, secretary for field operations and Rufus Foster, COP chairman for the Arouca Maloney constituency council collectively said Prakash was to blame for the demise of the party and he (Prakash) was more concerned about holding on to power than the interest of the COP members.

Kishore said the results of the local government elections where the COP failed to win any of the corporations it contested were the “final straw”.

“The much bigger problem is the fact that by staying in the Partnership we have abandoned our principles and broken our word to the people of Trinidad and Tobago,” said Kishore.

He said under Prakash’s leadership, the COP had gone further downhill as he kept taking the decision to stay in the Partnership and comply with the “dictates of the UNC” rather than attend to the needs of the COP.

“Principles are more important than power,” said Kishore, adding that there was still time to salvage the COP as long as there were law-abiding citizens who stood for the party’s principles.

Foster minced no words in expressing his dissatisfaction with Prakash’s leadership and said Prakash would prove whether he was a “UNC agent” or not by the way he treated the motion. (Trinidad Express)