Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les yes­ter­day re­mained mum on whether she will move to dis­ci­pline Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj, fol­low­ing his de­ci­sion to at­tend last Sat­ur­day’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) fundrais­er Christ­mas din­ner.

Even as calls in­crease for res­ig­na­tion or re­moval yes­ter­day, Beck­les said, “Well, I mean, you know, he gave his ex­pla­na­tion. At this point in time, that is all I would com­ment on. I wouldn’t say any­thing fur­ther at this time.”

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, PN­Mites called for se­vere ac­tion to be tak­en, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter it was re­vealed Bal­li­ram did not at­tend his own Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion staff Christ­mas din­ner, which was al­so last Sat­ur­day.

Par­ty mem­bers called on Beck­les to con­vene a spe­cial gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing to de­ter­mine if a breach of par­ty dis­ci­pline oc­curred and di­rect PNM Ari­ma coun­cil­lors to ta­ble and sup­port a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence to­wards Ma­haraj’s res­ig­na­tion or re­moval.

Ma­haraj has said he’s done noth­ing wrong in buy­ing tick­ets (priced at $750 each) for the UNC fundrais­er from a UNC “coun­cil­lor” who con­tact­ed him. He al­so said his nephew had asked him that day what he was do­ing and he’d said “noth­ing” and his nephew pro­duced tick­ets to the UNC event, which they at­tend­ed.

Ma­haraj said as a busi­ness­man, many come to him for con­tri­bu­tion, in­put or do­na­tion. Ma­haraj said he’d even been ap­proached by the Mal­abar po­lice last Sun­day and he’d di­rect­ed them - as he did all re­quests - to his mar­ket­ing de­part­ment.

Ma­haraj was mum on whether he was stay­ing with the PNM or go­ing to the UNC, on­ly say­ing he would soon put a new board in place at his com­pa­ny’s busi­ness and would take a back seat.

Ma­haraj, how­ev­er, took is­sue with things that he said were not done for Ari­ma, call­ing it the “for­got­ten town” and re­quest­ing var­i­ous fa­cil­i­ties.

PNM Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les was very sar­cas­tic about Ma­haraj’s at­ten­dance at the UNC event. Oth­er mem­bers felt Ma­haraj’s ac­tions hurt PNM’s in­ter­ests.

Among the Ari­ma cor­po­ra­tion, there’s fur­ther con­cern, since while Ma­haraj at­tend­ed the UNC’s din­ner, he didn’t at­tend his own cor­po­ra­tion staff Christ­mas din­ner on the same night at the Ari­ma New Gov­ern­ment pri­ma­ry school.

Sources and some Ari­ma burgess­es said the event, or­gan­ised by the cor­po­ra­tion’s events com­mit­tee, was for work­ers, their fam­i­lies and guests. Tick­ets were $200 each. It was con­firmed that of the 10 PNM coun­cil­lors, about five didn’t at­tend—two due to ill­ness and an­oth­er with a pri­or ap­point­ment—as well as Ma­haraj, who wasn’t among speak­ers.

They said the event was dis­cussed in the cor­po­ra­tion’s meet­ing last Thurs­day, which Ma­haraj had at­tend­ed.

Yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said the event was “a staff par­ty” and tick­ets cost $200. He said he’d had a 3 pm meet­ing that day in Champs Fleurs, which his nephew at­tend­ed and the move to the UNC event arose af­ter his nephew asked what he was do­ing lat­er.

It was spon­ta­neous, I wasn’t dressed for any func­tion, I was wear­ing a jer­sey, but usu­al­ly have a jack­et in my car,” he added.

“But I main­tain Ari­ma’s a for­got­ten town. I’m go­ing all out to get the 12 things need­ed,” Ma­haraj added, de­clin­ing to an­swer if he’ll work close­ly with the UNC Gov­ern­ment to get them.

Ari­ma PNM coun­cil­lors are mum on the sit­u­a­tion. But some burgess­es post­ed com­ments query­ing why Ma­haraj hasn’t re­signed yet. Oth­er PNM coun­cil­lors ex­pressed con­cern about Ma­haraj’s ap­pear­ance at the UNC func­tion, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter “blank­ing his own cor­po­ra­tion’s event.”

They added, “It’s not the po­lit­i­cal norm and we have a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion year com­ing up, so we must be con­cerned.”

They not­ed for­mer UNC War­renville/Kel­ly Vil­lage coun­cil­lor Samuel Sankar was side­lined by the UNC in 2023, when he was the sole UNC coun­cil­lor at­tend­ing a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry meet­ing af­ter then-UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar man­dat­ed her coun­cil­lors to boy­cott it. Sankar lat­er re­signed from the UNC.

Yes­ter­day, the PNM Change­mak­ers group - which was vo­cal dur­ing the PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tion - called for Ma­haraj’s re­moval, say­ing, “Pen­ny must act!”

There have been ques­tions about whether Beck­les would deal with Ma­haraj, as it’s been not­ed that his mat­ter is sim­i­lar to the De­cem­ber 2013 is­sue when Beck­les was a PNM Sen­a­tor/la­dy vice chair­man and was crit­i­cised by PN­Mites for at­tend­ing a cur­ry duck lime spon­sored by UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal.

The Change­mak­ers said the PNM was built on a sim­ple un­com­pro­mis­ing prin­ci­ple: po­lit­i­cal of­fice is a trust con­ferred by the par­ty, not a per­son­al pos­ses­sion.

“The May­or’s at­ten­dance at a UNC fundrais­ing din­ner con­sti­tutes a pub­lic po­lit­i­cal act in­con­sis­tent with that trust. A fundrais­er isn’t a so­cial gath­er­ing, but an in­stru­ment of par­ti­san mo­bil­i­sa­tion. When at­tend­ed by a PNM of­fice­hold­er, it cre­ates con­fu­sion, weak­ens par­ty dis­ci­pline, and erodes pub­lic con­fi­dence in the Move­ment’s co­her­ence.”

The group said the prop­er con­sti­tu­tion­al course in­volves con­ven­ing a spe­cial gen­er­al coun­cil, for­mal de­ter­mi­na­tion that the may­or’s con­duct breach­es par­ty dis­ci­pline; a di­rec­tive to PNM Ari­ma coun­cil­lors to ta­ble/sup­port a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence and the res­ig­na­tion or re­moval of the may­or.

The group added, “This isn’t puni­tive. It’s cor­rec­tive. It is not ha­tred. It is gov­er­nance...”