Sup­port­ers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had a heat­ed ex­change over po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day at the par­ty’s con­ven­tion in Cou­va.

Af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­dressed hun­dreds of mem­bers at the Cou­va South Mul­ti Pur­pose Hall, Pun­dit Don­ny Sam­lal com­plained to re­porters that he had been barred from fil­ing a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion against the po­lit­i­cal leader. How­ev­er, he was in­ter­rupt­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar sup­port­ers and pre­vent­ed from con­tin­u­ing the in­ter­view.

“We sup­port Kam­la. Kam­la, no­body else,” one sup­port­er shout­ed.

Oth­er mem­bers went to Sam­lal’s de­fence and claimed that he was be­ing pushed.

“Why you touch­ing the man? Why are you push­ing him?” asked at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la.

For­mer MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al shout­ed: “What is wrong? That is not le­gal!”

Lal­la had a brief ex­change with one of the sup­port­ers and then walked of, say­ing: “Be­have your­self.”

Be­fore he was in­ter­rupt­ed, Sam­lal said he had been wait­ing the en­tire evening to file the mo­tion.

“How­ev­er, we were blocked sev­er­al times and bul­lied off the stage. This is a very dis­turb­ing as­pect of our democ­ra­cy be­cause I rep­re­sent the thou­sands of Ca­roni work­ers who were nev­er giv­en their VSEP pack­ages,” he said.

Sam­lal said in 2010 to 2015 Ca­roni work­ers had sup­port­ed and wor­shiped Per­sad-Biss­esar who was then Prime Min­is­ter.

“We do love Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar but we do al­so be­lieve that she is not go­ing to take the par­ty for­ward. Our chil­dren are suf­fer­ing, we need to mi­grate from Trinidad and To­ba­go. We can­not even come out of our hous­es and we need strong, eth­i­cal young lead­ers to take us for­ward. We do not need a par­ty that is sup­press­ing the views of our peo­ple. We need them to be heard,” he said.

At that point, Sam­lal’s voice was drowned out by Per­sad-Bisses­sar sup­port­ers and the in­ter­view end­ed.

When she ad­dressed par­ty mem­bers ear­li­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told them while they might not agree with one an­oth­er they should show each oth­er re­spect and love.