By CLINT CHAN TACK Monday, January 14 2008

CONGRESS of the People (COP) leader Winston Dookeran yesterday hinted at legal action after members of his party were barred from entering Parliament during the sitting of the Lower House last week Monday, because they wore clothing with the party’s symbol.

At a press conference yesterday at the Vishnu Boys’ Hindu College in Caroni, Dookeran said the party viewed the barring of its members to witness debate on Government’s motion on crime in the House of Representatives as “an act of political discrimination.”

Saying the COP plans to have a presence in the public gallery of the Parliament Chamber as it seeks to “get back on the national agenda” Dookeran said, “We have raised with the Speaker of the House the appropriateness of that decision because it is clear in the past that members have come into the gallery with emblems of various political parties.”

Dookeran also claimed the PNM and UNC A parties each spent $249 million in last year’s General Election campaign while his party spent a mere $12 million to campaign.

He was however tight-lipped over whether he will stand for re-election as COP Political Leader at the party’s National Congress in May or if the party would join forces with the UNC A against the PNM in this year’s Local Government Elections.