RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Tabaquite res­i­dents say they are clue­less about the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) de­ci­sion to drop its prospec­tive can­di­date Anil Ramjit af­ter re­open­ing nom­i­na­tions on Mon­day.

Res­i­dents from both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide told Guardian Me­dia that Ramjit was fac­ing the same in­ter­nal chal­lenges that in­cum­bent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne may en­counter when she goes be­fore the UNC’s screen­ing com­mit­tee this week.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Pas­tor Dilip Sama­roo of the Tabaquite Open Bible Church said Ramjit had been ea­ger to serve and was dis­ap­point­ed af­ter be­ing side­lined.

“Mr Ramjit’s heart was set on rep­re­sent­ing. He want­ed to reach out with pro­grammes for youths, or­gan­ise short cours­es, en­cour­age vo­ca­tion­al train­ing, and im­prove farm­ing meth­ods for Tabaquite farm­ers,” Sama­roo re­vealed.

He could not say why the PNM had dropped Ramjit but not­ed that Tabaquite was held by the UNC and that its rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Haynes-Al­leyne, had done a good job rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly the youths.

He added that Haynes-Al­leyne had sup­port­ed the con­stituen­cy through in­fra­struc­tur­al projects, youth pro­grammes, and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port.

“When there are deaths or com­mu­ni­ty is­sues, she lends sup­port. She lis­tens to re­quests for sub­ven­tions and backs youth sports pro­grammes,” he said.

Tabaquite, a large­ly agri­cul­tur­al con­stituen­cy with over 25,000 reg­is­tered vot­ers, suf­fers from in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenges, in­clud­ing poor roads and land­slips.

“From Bonne Aven­ture to Tabaquite, the road is ter­ri­ble. The MP was in­volved in bring­ing pipe-borne wa­ter to ar­eas like Coros­al and Cot­ton Hill,” he added. While wood­en bridges in Light­bourne were re­placed, road re­pairs and land­slip sta­bil­i­sa­tion re­main on­go­ing chal­lenges.

At School Trace, Gas­par­il­lo, where Ramjit op­er­ates R&R Bud­get Drugs, some ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in gen­er­al.

Raz­iff Jamaldin said that while Ramjit was known as a busi­ness­man, he was rarely seen in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“I don’t know much about Mr Ramjit. I’ve lived here for 68 years and nev­er saw him walk­ing around,” Jamaldin added.

Mean­while, at Par­force Road, Shel­don Ro­driguez said he al­so did not know Ramjit per­son­al­ly. He said, like many oth­ers, he had no in­ter­est in pol­i­tics.

“Mr Ramjit is a qui­et per­son. I saw him once or twice, but we nev­er spoke,” Ro­driguez added. He said that re­gard­less of who was in pow­er, peo­ple still faced chal­lenges.

One such per­son, Jacque­line Bas­deo, a wid­ow, said she al­so did not know why Ramjit was side­lined.

“The PNM does noth­ing for any­one here. I am a wid­ow strug­gling with bills and re­ly­ing on pub­lic as­sis­tance. It’s re­al­ly hard for me,” she said.

At Caratal Road, Tris­ton Ro­gan point­ed to eco­nom­ic chal­lenges since Petrotrin’s clo­sure.

“We have bad roads and job short­ages. Once you have can­di­dates will­ing to im­prove the com­mu­ni­ty, the par­ty should con­sid­er that when screen­ing can­di­dates,” he said.

Mean­while, Leonard Cow­an ac­knowl­edged Haynes-Al­leyne’s vis­i­bil­i­ty in the area. “Her con­stituen­cy of­fice is op­po­site my house. It’s not nice how they are treat­ing her. She con­nects with the peo­ple,” he said.

Haynes-Al­leyne is ex­pect­ed to be screened by the UNC to­day. Her fall­out with the par­ty fol­lows her align­ment with UNC dis­si­dents led by Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray.

On Mon­day, Ramjit was left puz­zled af­ter learn­ing that the par­ty was seek­ing new nom­i­nees for the seat, even though he had not re­lin­quished his role.

Ramjit said he was shocked by the par­ty’s de­ci­sion.

“I don’t know why. I didn’t re­sign. I didn’t with­draw. I had some run-ins with the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive. We had some dis­agree­ments. I don’t want to say any­thing un­til I find out what’s go­ing on. Hon­est­ly, I just got the mes­sage, but I re­al­ly don’t know what’s hap­pen­ing. I was a bit shocked, but I was hav­ing some se­ri­ous prob­lems with the Tabaquite ex­ec­u­tive, and I have my rea­sons why,” he said. He de­clined to com­ment yes­ter­day.