Sascha Wil­son

A for­mer Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­date for Bar­rack­pore West has stepped out of the race and crossed the floor to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).In­dar Jairaj ap­peared on the UNC plat­form in Debe on Fri­day night and was in­tro­duced by Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal.Mooni­lal said Jairaj had "re­turned home to the UNC" and asked sup­port­ers to wel­come him.

The used-car busi­ness­man said while he was cam­paign­ing for the PNM in Bar­rack­pore West he had to wear a hel­met. He said res­i­dents told him to get out."They said we have brand new roads, we have brand new box drains, we have wa­ter every day."What could I say. You know what I did, I lis­ten to my Prime Min­is­ter and I came back home. Thank you very much."

Jairaj said in a tele­phone in­ter­view that he with­drew from the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions race in Oc­to­ber 2.He said he nev­er be­longed to any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, but de­cid­ed to join the PNM be­cause he want­ed to rep­re­sent the peo­ple in his area.How­ev­er, he said,dur­ing his walk­a­bouts he re­alised that the UNC had done a lot in his com­mu­ni­ty and de­cid­ed to give the UNC his sup­port.Jairaj said he filled out an ap­pli­ca­tion form to join the UNC on Fri­day night.