Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Ad­vis­er to the Gen­er­a­tion Next group, Mick­ela Pan­day, says the team has no in­ten­tion of leav­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) nor is it try­ing to de­stroy the par­ty. Pan­day, speak­ing in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, as­sured that her team was com­mit­ted to the UNC and its sta­bil­i­ty. "We are not trou­ble­mak­ers. In no way, form or fash­ion nor would we try to de­stroy the UNC or make trou­ble in the UNC," she said. Pan­day, a for­mer UNC MP, as­sured Gen­er­a­tion Next was not break­ing away from the UNC. "My fa­ther is the founder of the par­ty. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to build the par­ty and we in Gen­er­a­tion Next will like to do what­ev­er we can to re­store it to its glo­ry days," she said. How­ev­er, she said com­mit­ment did not mean Gen­er­a­tion Next would stay silent in the face of ques­tion­able ac­tiv­i­ties with­in the par­ty.

"If we see some­thing go­ing wrong or peo­ple and process­es are putting the in­tegri­ty of the par­ty in­to ques­tion we would not sit by and sim­ply say noth­ing," she said. Pan­day said Gen­er­a­tion Next can­di­dates, which lost the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions on March 24, would con­tin­ue to work in the con­stituen­cies. How­ev­er, she said, close at­ten­tion would be paid to the per­for­mance of the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive. "While we in­tend to as­sist, work with and help the par­ty to build and grow, we will be look­ing on to en­sure the prin­ci­ples and be­liefs of the UNC are ad­hered to," she added.

On Sun­day Pan­day held a me­dia con­fer­ence at Rien­zi Com­plex to high­light dis­crep­an­cies in the UNC's in­ter­nal elec­tions on March 24.

She point­ed to some mem­bers who were giv­en three mem­ber­ship cards with three dif­fer­ent reg­is­tra­tion num­bers.

She ad­mit­ted that Gen­er­a­tion Next was still con­sid­er­ing its le­gal op­tions. She added: "We have looked at all of our op­tions. We have not ruled out any op­tion but our ini­tial de­ci­sion is to ask for the ex­pla­na­tion (for the ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the elec­tions) which is what we did." At the me­dia con­fer­ence Pan­day called on the UNC elec­tions com­mit­tee to pro­duce ev­i­dence that new­ly- elect­ed UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Mar­lene Coudray has been a mem­ber of the par­ty for 12 months and is el­i­gi­ble for the po­si­tion. Yes­ter­day she called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the San Fer­nan­do May­or's en­try in­to the UNC. She said: "We raised ques­tions on whether she is a mem­ber for 12 months and whether she re­signed from the COP. "I think those things need to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and I think if it is found that she did not (re­sign) then she would be in breach of our con­sti­tu­tion and would there­fore have no choice but to step down."