Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son says she is not con­sid­er­ing leav­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al?Move­ment (PNM) and re­mains a loy­al mem­ber of the par­ty.

She made the de­c­la­ra­tion on?Sun­day night as she de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion to at­tend Gov­ern­ment Whip Dr Roodal Mooni­lal's in­ter­na­tion­al ta­ble-top beat­ing and cur­ry duck com­pe­ti­tion in Debe on?Sat­ur­day night.

Beck­les-Robin­son, the PNM La­dy vice- chair­man, said her ap­pear­ance at the event had noth­ing to do with pol­i­tics.

On Sat­ur­day night, Beck­les-Robin­son stunned many when she turned up at Fun Splash Wa­ter park, Debe for the com­pe­ti­tion.

She was greet­ed with loud cheers by the main­ly Unit­ed Na­tion­al?Con­gress (UNC)?crowd as she was wel­comed by Mooni­lal.

Beck­les, speak­ing with the T&T?Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view on?Sun­day night, as­sured that her loy­al­ty to the PNM?re­mains firm and she has no in­ten­tion of switch­ing al­le­giance from the Op­po­si­tion par­ty.

"No­body has ap­proached me, ab­solute­ly no­body from any po­lit­i­cal par­ty has ap­proached me at all. And even if I were ap­proached, the point is I am a mem­ber of the PNM for 23 years and I re­main a very loy­al mem­ber of the PNM. I have had no ap­proach­es and quite frankly it is not up for con­sid­er­a­tion, leav­ing the PNM or join­ing any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. That is not at all with­in my con­tem­pla­tion," she said.

Mooni­lal, in a brief in­ter­view with the T&T?Guardian on Sun­day, as­sured that Beck­les-Robin­son was not be­ing "poached" by the UNC.

"She was guest and we were hap­py to have her and she brought greet­ings to the peo­ple of Oropouche East and it was a won­der­ful evening. (Sat­ur­day night) cen­tred on the qual­i­ty of the cur­ry duck and the wide and ver­sa­tile skills of the ta­ble beat­ers. We con­tin­ue to en­joy a cor­dial re­la­tion­ship with her (Beck­les-Robin­son) af­ter many years of par­lia­men­tary friend­ship,"?Mooni­lal said.

She ex­plained that on Fri­day she was in­vit­ed to the event by Fun?Slash own­er, and known PNM?sup­port­er Vi­jay?Ra­mai, and on Sat­ur­day while on her way to La Brea she de­cid­ed to at­tend the com­pe­ti­tion.

"I on­ly stayed for half an hour," she said.

Beck­les-Robin­son min­gled with Mooni­lal, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim?Gopeesingh, Gre­go­ry Bisses­sar--Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bises­sar's hus­band--At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Min­is­ter of Arts Lin­coln Dou­glas. She was seen shar­ing a hearty laugh with the min­is­ters.

She al­so de­liv­ered brief re­marks at the event which was re­ceived with thun­der­ous ap­plause from the au­di­ence.

Beck­les-Robin­son said she was not sur­prised by her re­cep­tion since she be­lieves that as a Trinida­di­an she can go any­where in the coun­try, even in an op­po­si­tion par­ty's heart­land, and not face hos­til­i­ty.

Last week PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley sur­prised many when he axed Beck­les-Robin­son from the Sen­ate. This prompt­ed spec­u­la­tion that it was a de­lib­er­ate move by Row­ley af­ter Beck­les-Robin­son sig­naled her in­ten­tion to con­test lead­er­ship of the par­ty.

On Sun­day Beck­les-Robin­son as­sured there was no "an­i­mos­i­ty" be­tween her­self and Row­ley.

"There is ab­solute­ly no ques­tion about my sup­port. He is the po­lit­i­cal leader;he has my fullest sup­port," she said.

Beck­les-Robin­son added, "We still main­tain a very good re­la­tion­ship and we had dis­cus­sions on it (her re­moval from?Sen­ate) and I was ful­ly aware of what he was go­ing to do."

She said she did not see the prob­lem with her con­test­ing lead­er­ship in the PNM, since it was Row­ley who ini­ti­at­ed the one man-one vote sys­tem in the par­ty and de­clared all po­si­tions were va­cant.

"He is the one who has made it very clear in terms of these po­si­tions be­ing va­cant and as a leader that is what he has said and I think that all cred­it should go to him for that," she said.