Shas­tri Boodan

Ch­agua­nas May­or Van­dana Mo­hit is con­fi­dent of win­ning the Ch­agua­nas East seat.

Mo­hit was among 10 new­com­ers to the po­lit­i­cal are­na who were giv­en the nod by the UNC leader and the screen­ing com­mit­tee to con­test the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Mo­hit spoke with Guardian Me­dia from her of­fices at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s Ad­min­is­tra­tive Com­plex yes­ter­day.

“I feel very hap­py this morn­ing. I feel con­fi­dent that the UNC will be the next Gov­ern­ment of T&T,” she said.

Mo­hit said dur­ing her term as may­or she has been able to bring some mea­sure of re­lief to per­sons in the busy cen­tral bor­ough. She said the par­ty has not tak­en a de­ci­sion on who would be her suc­ces­sor.

Mo­hit said she plans to start walk­ing through­out Ch­agua­nas East to­day. When asked about her op­po­nent the PNM’s Clarence Ramb­harat, she said, “Every bat­tle I have en­tered, I have en­tered to win. I am in this to win this.”

Rudy In­dars­ingh, the Cou­va South MP, was giv­en the green light for the third straight elec­tion by the UNC to con­test the seat.

In­dars­ingh said he was con­fi­dent of tak­ing the seat once again for the par­ty.

He said roads and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture had de­te­ri­o­rat­ed while the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate saw many plants be­ing closed, with work­ers be­ing sent home be­cause of gov­ern­ment poli­cies. In­dars­ingh said in­fra­struc­ture, such as ear­ly child­hood care fa­cil­i­ties had been left to rot while res­i­dents had to clam­our and protest to get a reg­u­lar sup­ply of wa­ter.

A to­tal of 10 in­cum­bent MPs are not run­ning for the UNC this year, with some hav­ing bowed out and oth­ers not se­lect­ed af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore the screen­ing com­mit­tee.