Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Af­ter in­tense crit­i­cism from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has come un­der fire from po­lit­i­cal par­ties and even a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP for at­tempt­ing to frame the court case and cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions against Dr Roodal Mooni­lal as a racial­ly mo­ti­vat­ed at­tack. They be­lieve that the elec­torate is no longer will­ing to tol­er­ate di­vi­sive, race-based pol­i­tics.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar has fired back, say­ing that she sim­ply said pub­licly what oth­ers whis­per in pri­vate.

In a state­ment on his so­cial me­dia page, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir, who is out of favour with Per­sad-Bisses­sar, lament­ed that in­stead of ad­dress­ing the al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against her deputy leader re­gard­ing the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (EM­BD), she de­cid­ed to stoke racial ten­sions.

“It is iron­ic that some­one who loud­ly pro­fess­es to be “an­ti-woke” has now con­ve­nient­ly de­cid­ed to play the race card for po­lit­i­cal mileage. In­stead of unit­ing peo­ple, she is seek­ing to di­vide them—a strat­e­gy that will on­ly lead to fur­ther dis­il­lu­sion­ment among UNC sup­port­ers and en­sure that the UNC crash­es to a third straight de­feat in the com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion,” Dr Rag­bir stat­ed.

Dr Rag­bir added, “I will con­tin­ue to pray for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and hope that she seeks the help she clear­ly needs for both her phys­i­cal and men­tal well-be­ing.”

He urged cit­i­zens to not let politi­cians turn them against each oth­er for their own self­ish gain.

Mean­while, Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day said her par­ty was “un­wa­ver­ing in its con­dem­na­tion of the re­cent racial­ly charged com­ments that seek to di­vide the peo­ple of T&T.”

On Thurs­day, when asked by the me­dia if she be­lieves Dr Mooni­lal is the vic­tim of a po­lit­i­cal witch-hunt, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “This is just the same lame and lazy elec­tion­eer­ing from the PNM for their base so they can run their racist ground cam­paign that ‘all of them In­di­an is thief’.”

Pan­day be­lieves any at­tempt to use race to in­cite the pop­u­la­tion is an at­tack on the soul of the re­pub­lic.

“What it does is it starts neg­a­tive com­men­tary on so­cial me­dia; peo­ple start bash­ing each oth­er, and how does that help any­body? So yes, what she said trig­gered my state­ment be­cause I saw so much vile rhetoric on so­cial me­dia,” Pan­day told Guardian Me­dia.

Pan­day said this will al­so turn young peo­ple away from in­volv­ing them­selves in pol­i­tics.

“They don’t want to hear this, es­pe­cial­ly when young peo­ple have so many oth­er things to wor­ry about now. Be­sides crime, they have no op­por­tu­ni­ties, no job op­por­tu­ni­ties, so how does this help them? And how does this help any­body?”

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader added, “What the Op­po­si­tion should be do­ing is speak­ing about so­lu­tions. We know what the PNM has done; they have failed the coun­try go­ing on to ten years, and we know that. But you see, when you come and you start that race-bait­ing, I have to stand up and say some­thing against that be­cause nor­mal­ly I ig­nore them,” she said.

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ment reeks of hypocrisy.

In a me­dia re­lease, Grif­fith stat­ed, “When sim­i­lar in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the TTPS were con­duct­ed in­to in­di­vid­u­als af­fil­i­at­ed with oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties—in­clud­ing high-rank­ing mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)—no such al­le­ga­tions of racial bias were made. The pub­lic will re­call the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Roger Kawals­ingh and a high-rank­ing mem­ber of the PNM, as well as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the deal­ings of Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, and even Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley him­self.”

Grif­fith said if there was a plot to go af­ter peo­ple of In­di­an de­scent, then Per­sad-Bisses­sar would nev­er have been ex­on­er­at­ed from is­sues such as Email­gate and the plant-like sub­stance mat­ters at her home.

“This is why the at­tempt to now frame le­gal scruti­ny as racial tar­get­ing on­ly serves to in­flame ten­sions and mis­lead the pub­lic, all in the name of po­ten­tial­ly ral­ly­ing her po­lit­i­cal base,” he said.

In a short re­ply to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, the Op­po­si­tion Leader said, “Don’t be mad at me for be­ing truth­ful; I on­ly said pub­licly what every­one whis­pers about pri­vate­ly.”

In re­sponse to Rag­bir’s pledge to pray for her, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I am al­ways thank­ful for any prayers that are sent my way. My on­ly re­quest is that he use a dif­fer­ent prayer from the one he us­es for him­self be­cause that clear­ly didn’t work out for him.”