Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer UNC mem­ber Lar­ry Lal­la, SC, was among those on so­cial me­dia who cheered on PNM St Au­gus­tine can­di­date Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal from afar as she filed doc­u­ments in last Fri­day’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cise, seek­ing to con­test St Au­gus­tine.

In her sec­ond at­tempt for the UNC-held seat, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal has an en­hanced pro­file since she start­ed work­ing with St Au­gus­tine in 2020.

“On­ward to Vic­to­ry!” Lal­la post­ed a heart emo­ji un­der a pic­ture of Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal and her cam­paign team mem­bers af­ter she con­clud­ed the nom­i­na­tion pro­ce­dure. Lal­la, who re­cent­ly re­signed from the UNC, was among the at­ten­dees at the PNM’s March 16 Port-of-Spain ral­ly. He made his de­but as a speak­er on the PNM's stage in Tu­na­puna on Sat­ur­day night.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, an at­tor­ney, is chal­leng­ing UNC’s Khadi­jah Ameen, who won the seat in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion when both com­pet­ed for it.

Since be­ing ap­point­ed a sen­a­tor and min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs in 2020, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal de­vel­oped with­in the PNM as one of the par­ty’s “livewire” hosts of its pub­lic meet­ings.

Dur­ing last Fri­day’s ex­er­cise, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, backed by a crowd of red-clad sup­port­ers, strode down the road to­wards the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s of­fice to the PNM’s theme song “Let’s Do This”, mixed with pound­ing tas­sa.

A San­ta Cruz girl, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said that in 2020 she was a very new can­di­date. “... New to pol­i­tics, and my con­nec­tion to St Au­gus­tine was based on the fact I’d spent most of my for­ma­tive years there as a stu­dent of Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege, as a UWI stu­dent, and then as a teacher at Lak­sh­mi Girls’ from 2003/4.”

She gave part-time lessons at St Au­gus­tine Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege and then re­turned to the con­stituen­cy as a law school stu­dent. “All my life I took from the con­stituen­cy–so this bid to rep­re­sent res­i­dents is re­al­ly an op­por­tu­ni­ty to give back and pay my ‘dues’.

“When I lost in 2020, I was blessed with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to lat­er serve as PNM’s St Au­gus­tine co-or­di­na­tor, al­low­ing me, even as a failed can­di­date, to con­tin­ue work­ing among the peo­ple.”

While ac­cess to Gov­ern­ment re­sources was dif­fi­cult for her to pro­vide as a non-elect­ed mem­ber, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal used her co­or­di­na­tor’s role to ad­vo­cate where she could and aligned her­self with groups and ac­tivists.

“And with pri­vate sec­tor sup­port, I was still able to do much so­cial work in the con­stituen­cy,” she added, cit­ing East­er, Christ­mas, back-to-school ac­tiv­i­ties, and a fe­male em­pow­er­ment fo­cus.

“All these fac­tors, I be­lieve, have en­hanced my pub­lic pro­file in St Au­gus­tine. Those who worked with me know I did the best I could with the re­sources we had ac­cess to. Like many politi­cians, we even use per­son­al funds to help. But we do it be­cause we’re called by a high­er pow­er to serve.

"So even with re­stric­tions, I was able to stay there and sup­port the peo­ple the best way I could. Imag­ine the greater pos­i­tive im­pact they'd have if I be­came their con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly elect­ed voice.”

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said that in her con­stituen­cy walks, “Many have said they’ve been un­der­rep­re­sent­ed and un­der­served, and they will not as­so­ciate with the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for very many per­son­al rea­sons. The UNC can­not say that ‘be­cause they're not in Gov­ern­ment they can’t serve peo­ple’. Lead­ers must be in­no­v­a­tive. Find ways to eth­i­cal­ly col­lab­o­rate with oth­ers to get things done. I’ve been able to.”

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal added that the PNM "pre­sent­ed the facts and fig­ures and op­er­at­ed re­spon­si­bly." In this new chap­ter un­der Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, she said, re­spon­si­ble lead­er­ship will con­tin­ue. "T&T needs to look be­yond the Op­po­si­tion’s un­re­al­is­tic, ir­re­spon­si­ble promis­es and al­low the seeds the PNM plant­ed in 2015 to bear fruit soon.”