Po­lit­i­cal par­ties went head-to-head in To­ba­go yes­ter­day af­ter the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM held a news con­fer­ence ac­cus­ing mem­bers of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) of re­fus­ing to meet to de­cide on a way for­ward on the im­passe.

She al­so ac­cused them of meet­ing with Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) of­fi­cials this week­end.

The Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil al­so an­nounced plans to take le­gal ac­tion over zip line ac­cu­sa­tions made dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign.

The Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PDP re­spond­ed im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter, rub­bish­ing the claims made by the PNM. He called on David­son Ce­les­tine to “send the let­ter,” as his “cour­t­house clothes are pressed and ready to go.”

While David­son Ce­les­tine an­nounced that the Prime Min­is­ter plans to come to the is­land to meet with the As­sem­bly­men and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als to dis­cuss the cur­rent THA im­passe, she al­so ac­cused the PDP of re­fus­ing to meet with the PNM to dis­cuss a so­lu­tion to the cur­rent 6-6 tie.

“We have seen over the last few weeks the un­will­ing­ness by the PDP to even at­tempt to set­tle on ba­sic mat­ters as it re­lates to set­ting, some kind of stan­dard, as it re­lates to treat­ing with a meet­ing on a way for­ward.”

She said the PDP has in­stead cho­sen to “spew ran­cour and hate” while on­ly the PNM has pre­sent­ed a le­gal and log­i­cal ap­proach to end­ing the im­passe.

The Coun­cil leader al­so said she will now take le­gal steps to clear her name on the zip line is­sue.

“It’s al­most three, go­ing on four weeks af­ter the elec­tions I called on him to present his ev­i­dence, those doc­u­ments he waved on the plat­form have not been pre­sent­ed. My le­gal coun­sel has ad­vised that I have a very strong case so I ex­pect that a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter will be served this week and soon af­ter I have in­struct­ed that we pro­ceed with mov­ing the mat­ter to court.”

The par­ty’s Pub­lic Re­la­tion Of­fi­cer Kwe­si DesVi­gnes al­so re­vealed that through­out the week­end mem­bers of the pub­lic have been con­tact­ing him about a mat­ter that is of grave con­cern.

“The Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PDP Far­ley Au­gus­tine has been seen meet­ing with mem­bers of the UNC at Sandy Point Beach Club on Sat­ur­day. I am call­ing on Mr Au­gus­tine to say what those con­ver­sa­tions were about. The con­sti­tu­tion al­lows for free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion just as the TOP did in 2010 and 2013 but let us be open and hon­est.”

David­son Ce­les­tine said while the PDP is call­ing on To­bag­o­ni­ans to “Rise and Re­sist”, she called on To­bag­o­ni­ans to “rise up in prayers” in hopes that the PDP and the UNC will be erad­i­cat­ed as she claimed the UNC is once again try­ing to seize con­trol of the THA.

Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PDP Far­ley Au­gus­tine im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond­ed via so­cial me­dia de­scrib­ing the in­for­ma­tion re­leased by the PNM as “spu­ri­ous claims” that are not on­ly false but are be­ing used to trump up feel­ings of xeno­pho­bia and racism in To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Deny­ing the al­le­ga­tions that he met with any UNC Of­fi­cial on Sat­ur­day, Au­gus­tine de­tailed his where­abouts high­light­ing events where oth­er PNM As­sem­bly­men were in at­ten­dance. He said the on­ly meet­ing he at­tend­ed last week was with Or­ange Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, a com­pa­ny from Trinidad that is de­sirous of set­ting up a busi­ness in To­ba­go.

He said that same com­pa­ny met with the PNM.

The PDP deputy po­lit­i­cal leader said he al­so con­tact­ed the Chair­man of the com­pa­ny who de­nied any af­fil­i­a­tion to the UNC, say­ing the com­pa­ny is fam­i­ly-owned, Je­ho­vah’s Wit­ness­es and do not get in­volved in pol­i­tics in any way.

He al­so took to task claims that the PDP does not wish to sit and talk, as she said it was David­son Ce­les­tine who said, “her par­ty is not in­ter­est­ed in any ac­com­mo­da­tion or deals.”

As it re­lates to the threat of le­gal ac­tion, Au­gus­tine said he had all the ev­i­dence.

“I have in my pos­ses­sion all of the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil notes and in­struc­tions on the mat­ter, $3.24 mil­lion was spent and just like the au­di­tor gen­er­al I am ask­ing where is the zi­pline. So send it for both of us let us go to court and when we do go to court, I am cer­tain we will all find out where is the zip line.”