The Democratic Labour Party ( DLP) was the main opposition party in Trinidad and Tobago from 1957 till 1976. The party was the party which opposed the People's National Movement (PNM) at the time of Independence. After several splits brought about by leadership struggles, the party lost its hold on the Indo-Trinidadian community in the 1976 General Elections and was displaced in parliament by the United Labour Front under the leadership of Basdeo Panday, a former DLP senator. The party was the representative of the ethnic Indian community in the country; however Indian Muslims and Christians were said to be less loyal to the party than Indian Hindus. The party symbol was a flaming torch. Federal period The DLP was formed through the merger of three Opposition parties in the Legislative Council, the People's Democratic Party, the Trinidad Labour Party and the Party of Political Progress Groups. Also joining was Stephen Maharaj, a member of the Butler Party. The three parties aligned with the Democratic Labour Party of the West Indies Federation under the leadership of Sir Alexander Bustamante and merged to form a single national party. The DLP defeated the PNM in the 1958 West Indies federal elections, winning six of the ten seats in the Federal Parliament of the West Indies Federation. Shortly thereafter the party began to disintegrate. Bhadase Sagan Maraj, the first leader of the party in the Legislative Council, became ill, bedridden and overly reliant on pethidine. Rudranath Capildeo was elected party leader in 1960; he was brought into the party to provide an "intellectual equal" to Eric Williams. When Capildeo left Trinidad to teach at the University of London in 1963, a faction of the party called a general meeting and elected Albert Gomes party leader. However, the rank and file of the party stood behind Capildeo, and the Gomes faction left the party. Independence era 1961 saw the introduction of the Representation of the People Act, which modernized the election process by instituting identification cards, voting machines, and altered the way in which constituencies were laid out. The DLP viewed this as an attempt to disenfranchise Indo-Trinidadian voters. Indo-Trinidadians were less educated and suspicious of authorities. The DLP claimed that Indo-Trinidadians would be less likely to register, and might be intimidated by "complicated" voting machines. They also accused the PNM of gerrymandering the constituencies to maximise the impact of PNM supporters and minimise