Con­gress of the Peo­ple's leader Prakash Ra­mad­har says he is dis­ap­point­ed that par­ty founder Win­ston Dook­er­an has en­dorsed the par­ty's chair, Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, for the lead­er­ship post in the par­ty's June 29 na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.To­mor­row is nom­i­na­tion day and Ra­mad­har, who is al­so the Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, is ex­pect­ed to be chal­lenged by Seep­er­sad-Bachan, the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, and deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Lin­coln Dou­glas, for the lead­er­ship post.

In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Ra­mad­har said he did not need Dook­er­an's en­dorse­ment."Hav­ing done that, he hav­ing en­dorsed, that is al­right. I don't need an en­dorse­ment from any of­fice-hold­er. I need an en­dorse­ment from the vot­ers of the COP," Ra­mad­har said.Not­ing he has al­ways act­ed in the in­ter­est of the coun­try and the par­ty, Ra­mad­har said he was not one to en­gage in "dog­fights every­where to take front page cov­er on is­sues that no­body should be cel­e­brat­ing, or be tak­ing cheap po­lit­i­cal ben­e­fits from."

He said he was re­fer­ring to many is­sues in the past where COP mem­bers went to the me­dia with­out au­thor­i­ty to so do, adding the unau­tho­rised me­dia com­ments on­ly sought to cre­ate more an­i­mos­i­ty and hate. The min­is­ter said he be­lieved in "dig­ni­fied lead­er­ship where one is strong but not loud about it."Com­ment­ing on the re­cent move by some mem­bers to have Dook­er­an re­turn as leader, Ra­mad­har said "what they were ask­ing for was for me to step aside and to in­stall Dook­er­an with­out an elec­tion."

Say­ing he knew who the movers of that mea­sure were, he said had he ac­cept­ed that pro­pos­al "I would have been dam­ag­ing the democ­ra­cy in the par­ty. They cre­at­ed this im­age that it was a pro-Dook­er­an and an­ti-Prakash move­ment."But Ra­mad­har said he was cer­tain Dook­er­an would not have con­test­ed against him."So they have used peo­ple in the process and at the last mo­ment (they) just throw the jock­ey off and re­place it with an­oth­er one, right, and we have seen an en­dorse­ment, which I am dis­ap­point­ed in."

He said that was not sup­posed to hap­pen in the COP.Ra­mad­har said he was seek­ing re-elec­tion to "vin­di­cate my stew­ard­ship and to get a man­date to go for­ward."He said there was a re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty of po­lit­i­cal fall­out in the COP based on how the elec­tions were con­duct­ed.With­out call­ing names, Ra­mad­har said he was learn­ing very quick­ly "that there are peo­ple who are very good at putting on a good front while us­ing oth­ers to do their dirty work, so there is a dan­ger of that hap­pen­ing but it won't come from me."

Car­olyn un­de­cid­ed

San Fer­nan­do West MP Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan is un­de­cid­ed on whether or not she will con­test the lead­er­ship post of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple be­cause of per­son­al at­tacks and mud­sling­ing.Her com­ment came in the wake of a se­ries of Face­book at­tacks against her and for­mer COP leader Win­ston yes­ter­day.In ref­er­ence to for­mer COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an, the blog­ger wrote: "At 72 years, this old fart needs to re­tire. He can bare­ly walk or sit in Par­lia­ment with­out doz­ing off.

"He va­cat­ed lead­er­ship due to his un­pop­u­lar­i­ty...He now en­dors­es the wicked witch from the west (San­do West)...self­ish woman, ar­ro­gant and to­tal­ly reck­less in her com­ments."In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the blog­ger was a se­nior ad­vis­er to a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter who was peev­ed be­cause she had re­fused to en­dorse 50 per cent salary in­creas­es for po­lit­i­cal ap­pointees."Why should I ap­prove of this in­crease when pub­lic ser­vants got on­ly five per cent," Seep­er­sad-Bachan said.

Ex­press­ing hurt at the blog, the min­is­ter said mud­sling­ing was one of the rea­sons her fam­i­ly was op­posed to her con­test­ing the elec­tions."Every­body on my case since Anil. They are con­demn­ing me for what I said. One of my great­est fears is the mud­sling­ing and al­ready I am see­ing it in the blogs," Seep­er­sad-Bachan said in ref­er­ence to the par­ty's de­ci­sion to sus­pend Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts over his re­fusal to co-op­er­ate with the in­ter­nal probe in­to the con­tro­ver­sial gan­ja video.

She said she did not want a "nasty cam­paign."She added: "This kind of at­tack is un­nec­es­sary and that is what I don't want in this elec­tion. We do not want a nasty fight. It is not healthy and this is one of the rea­sons that I have not de­cid­ed to con­test."

She al­so said she met with COP stal­warts of Ch­agua­nas on Tues­day night and re­ceived over­whelm­ing sup­port. She added that she planned to meet with her con­stituents tonight be­fore mak­ing her fi­nal de­ci­sion. She al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas who has al­so thrown his hat in­to the ring.