In­cum­bent Cou­va South Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Rudranath In­dars­ingh says he had no clue that he would not have been se­lect­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to seek re-elec­tion for a fourth term. How­ev­er, he says he re­mains loy­al to the par­ty.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view al­most 24 hours af­ter the de­ci­sion to re­place him with in­cum­bent Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath was an­nounced by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bissses­sar at Eid cel­e­bra­tions in Princes Town on Mon­day, In­dars­ingh said that he al­ways ac­cept­ed the out­come as a pos­si­bil­i­ty when he put him­self for­ward to be screened by the par­ty af­ter serv­ing as MP for three con­sec­u­tive terms since 2010. 

In­dars­ingh said: “When I got in­to elec­toral pol­i­tics, I un­der­stood that with the screen­ing and al­lo­ca­tion of seats you put your­self be­fore the po­lit­i­cal leader and the screen­ing com­mit­tee and ul­ti­mate­ly the de­ci­sions are left to them to make the al­lo­ca­tion or as­sign­ments of seats.” 

He said he had no idea or hint when he was called to a meet­ing with par­ty of­fi­cials on Sun­day evening at the UNC’s Mulchan Seuchan Road, Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters that it meant he would not be re-se­lect­ed to con­test the Cou­va South seat.

“I was called to a meet­ing and I was ad­vised by par­ty of­fi­cials.”  He said up to Sat­ur­day he was hope­ful of get­ting the nod af­ter be­ing screened.

“I am hu­man, but at the end of the day noth­ing is guar­an­teed in pol­i­tics. In pol­i­tics noth­ing is guar­an­teed, the de­ci­sions of the screen­ing com­mit­tee you have to live with.”

He has been MP for the area since 2010.

In­dars­ingh ad­mit­ted that Padarath pos­sessed the char­ac­ter­is­tics to ef­fec­tive­ly rep­re­sent the con­stituen­cy and its con­stituents but sug­gest­ed that he (Padarath) would have to es­tab­lish a foothold him­self through in­ter­act­ing with those con­nect­ed with the con­stituen­cy. 

“Mr Padarath I am sure will deep­en his knowl­edge. He has had ex­po­sure to elec­toral pol­i­tics in the con­stituen­cy of Princes Town and he will, I am sure, grow in terms of meet­ing and treat­ing with par­ty ac­tivists and con­stituents in Cou­va South,” he said. 

In­dars­ingh said that he was able to hit the ground run­ning be­fore the 2010 elec­tion as he pre­vi­ous­ly served as cam­paign man­ag­er for for­mer MP Kelvin Ram­nath in two elec­tions. He said that his stint as pres­i­dent of the All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union (AT­GW­TU) al­so as­sist­ed. 

In­dars­ingh not­ed that he had sev­er­al con­ver­sa­tions with Padarath since the de­ci­sion was an­nounced and ad­mit­ted that he would be will­ing to of­fer as­sis­tance, if such is so­licit­ed. Asked to rate his per­for­mance as an MP over the past 15 years, In­dars­ingh said that he was pleased that he was able to con­nect with scores of con­stituents, many of whom, he claimed, pledged their con­tin­ued sup­port of him even af­ter his de­par­ture. 

How­ev­er, he ex­pressed con­cerns over his in­abil­i­ty to de­liv­er for his con­stituents while serv­ing as an Op­po­si­tion MP over the last decade. In a lengthy state­ment post­ed on his so­cial me­dia page be­fore the in­ter­view, In­dars­ingh thanked Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the par­ty for giv­ing him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent the con­stituen­cy. 

“I am grate­ful to my con­stituents of Cou­va South, who have be­come my moth­ers, my fa­thers, my broth­ers, my sis­ters and my friends,” he said. He said he was still con­vinced that on­ly a UNC gov­ern­ment, even with­out him in it, would be able fix the is­sues af­fect­ing the coun­try. 

“The bright­est years of this coun­try were had un­der gov­ern­ments formed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress,” he said. 

He added, “I live in the con­stituen­cy of Ch­agua­nas West all my life and I have not on­ly served the UNC in the con­stituen­cy of Cou­va South but  I have served the UNC in its po­lit­i­cal fight against the PNM through­out the length and breadth of T&T.

“I joined the UNC at the age of 14, I trav­elled from Hillview Col­lege in Tu­na­puna to have an au­di­ence with Mr Bas­deo Pan­day and this can be ver­i­fied by the first chair­man of the UNC in the per­son of Dr Ram­per­sad Paras­ram. I had been a child of the UNC since its in­cep­tion, the DNA of the UNC runs deep with­in  my veins.”

Res­i­dents sur­prised

Guardian Me­dia spoke with sev­er­al con­stituents who said In­dars­ingh served the peo­ple of Cou­va South well. They said even though he was in op­po­si­tion, In­dars­ingh put pres­sure on the PNM gov­ern­ment to fix the di­lap­i­dat­ed roads, wa­ter sup­ply and get more po­lice pa­trols in the area. Mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty said In­dars­ingh was ex­treme­ly vo­cal when it came to rais­ing is­sues about the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty and saw no rea­son to change him as the prospec­tive can­di­date for the area at this time to fa­cil­i­tate Padarath.

Pen­sion­er Chanka Ram­ta­hal, a res­i­dent of Olive Grove, said pol­i­tics is a game of its own.

“Cer­tain de­ci­sions are made that don’t seem log­i­cal but we have to ac­cept it.” Ram­ta­hal said In­dars­ingh was an ef­fec­tive MP.

“It was a sur­prise to me that he was re­moved and Bar­ry (Padarath) who was in Princess Town re­placed him, I can’t un­der­stand the ra­tio­nale be­hind that.”

Taxi dri­ver, Davis Jones, 60, a res­i­dent of Cal­cut­ta Road #2, said the UNC was mak­ing the right move by mak­ing changes. How­ev­er, he didn’t want to com­ment on In­dars­ingh’s per­for­mance. Cal­cut­ta Road #3 res­i­dent Nicholas Kow­lessar said In­dars­ingh did not do a bad job dur­ing his 15-year stint as an MP.

“Cou­va South is more a safe UNC seat, by mak­ing that move wouldn’t make that dif­fer­ence. If UNC put any­one in Cou­va South they would win. It’s up to the peo­ple if they want change.”

Corine Adams, 30, a house­wife of Mc Bean, Cou­va said In­dars­ingh as­sist­ed her when her house was gut­ted by fire by writ­ing to var­i­ous agen­cies for help.

“I hope  Bar­ry would be there to do as much as  Rudy or even more.”

Dur­ing the UNC’s meet­ing in Debe last evening, In­dars­ingh sat front row with oth­er par­ty mem­bers and was praised for his “class.”