Geisha Kow­lessar

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment has suf­fered an­oth­er blow, this time with the res­ig­na­tion of Tourism Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma.There had been calls for Shar­ma to be axed from the Gov­ern­ment amid an on-go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion that he phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed his for­mer girl­friend and busi­ness­woman Sasha Singh at Grand Bazaar carpark.

Shar­ma's res­ig­na­tion came six days af­ter Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh was dis­missed as min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment for dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour while on board a do­mes­tic flight from To­ba­go to Trinidad on March 16.Singh, who went pub­lic, claimed the blow was so pow­er­ful that she was knocked out. She al­so al­leged that Shar­ma showed no re­morse for his ac­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who ac­cept­ed Shar­ma's res­ig­na­tion yes­ter­day, said her lead­er­ship was not formed "in the mould of loud and an­gry politi­cians" who felt that shout­ing and at­tack­ing every­thing was the best way to be heard. A state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ad­vised Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona to re­voke Shar­ma's ap­point­ment.

In jus­ti­fy­ing her de­ci­sion to ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "There has been some dis­cus­sion on the num­ber of times changes have been made in my Cab­i­net."I say that is a mea­sure­ment of my com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing the high ideals up­on which we were elect­ed," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.She added there was some dis­cus­sion re­gard­ing the num­ber of times changes which were made in her Cab­i­net.

This, the prime min­is­ter said, was a mea­sure­ment of her com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing the high ideals up­on which the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment was elect­ed."There is no priv­i­leged es­cape, no al­lowance for ar­ro­gance, no for­give­ness for in­dis­cre­tion. Those days are gone, such com­pro­mise has ex­pired. The re­spon­si­ble lead­er­ship which we promised to ush­er in a dawn of a new era is the new po­lit­i­cal cur­ren­cy.

"But my de­ci­sions and poli­cies speak even loud­er of who I am and what I ex­pect of those around me in gov­ern­ment," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. She said her gov­ern­ment was stronger than ever be­cause of the tough de­ci­sions tak­en and that the pop­u­la­tion could breathe eas­i­er as it was con­fi­dent in the knowl­edge that val­ue-based lead­er­ship would nev­er be com­pro­mised. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so thanked Shar­ma for his con­tri­bu­tions to the Gov­ern­ment.

Top CoP: Probe wrap­ping up

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams said the probe in­volv­ing Shar­ma is be­ing com­plet­ed.He how­ev­er, said he could not give a time frame on when the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be con­clud­ed.The probe is be­ing con­duct­ed by of­fi­cers of the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion."That re­port is con­tin­u­ing to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and I do ex­pect the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be wrapped up in a short pe­ri­od of time.

"It is not a com­pli­cat­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion so the in­ves­ti­ga­tor should be through with it with it with­in the short­est pe­ri­od of time. It is a straight for­ward in­ves­ti­ga­tion," he added.Williams said he was ex­pect­ed to leave the coun­try yes­ter­day and re­turn next Sat­ur­day.Asked if a file would be passed on to him as it re­lat­ed to the lay­ing of charges Williams said this was not the case.

"This is an in­ves­ti­ga­tion that would not come to me. We have a whole struc­ture in place to deal with these kinds of in­ves­ti­ga­tions. If per­haps it has to reach at the high­est lev­el it would reach to ei­ther ACP Crime De­o­dath Doolalchan or Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Crime Glen Hack­ett but it would not reach me," Williams added.

Shar­ma: I am a firm be­liev­er in kar­ma

For­mer Tourism min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma says he will con­tin­ue pri­vate­ly to clear his name in the in­ter­est of jus­tice and no fur­ther pub­lic state­ment on mat­ters per­tain­ing to the al­leged in­ci­dent will be made as it is en­tire­ly a mat­ter for his lawyers to han­dle.Shar­ma said so in a state­ment on his res­ig­na­tion hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced she had ac­cept­ed it.

He said, "I have served my coun­try faith­ful­ly and self­less­ly for close to two decades. Dur­ing this en­tire pe­ri­od my per­son­al life has nev­er been the sub­ject of pub­lic dis­course. I am not the sto­ry, the work I do is the full ac­count of who I hap­pen to be."Say­ing he was a firm a firm be­liev­er in kar­ma Shar­ma not­ed he had al­ways said that his en­try in­to pub­lic of­fice is about "ser­vice to the peo­ple not about me. Some say it is a thank­less task, but for me each day brings a lev­el of sat­is­fac­tion that is im­mea­sur­able."

He ac­knowl­edge, how­ev­er, that pub­lic life comes with a lev­el of scruti­ny and ex­pec­ta­tion that does not al­low for con­sid­er­a­tion of your ver­sion of events."With the sto­ries swirling around on my per­son­al life even seek­ing to clar­i­fy the is­sues through state­ments will un­doubt­ed­ly be coun­tered by oth­ers. So that is not an op­tion. I will not al­low these al­le­ga­tions to de­tract from the good work of the Gov­ern­ment nor to sul­ly the name of my par­ty. Any­thing I at­tempt to say on the mat­ter will on­ly serve to feed the is­sue.

It is there­fore with a heavy heart but a light spir­it of com­mit­ment to my coun­try and recog­ni­tion of the bur­den of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty I hold as a Min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment that I of­fer the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, my un­re­served res­ig­na­tion."Shar­ma al­so thanked his con­stituents for repos­ing their faith in him. He al­so pledge to con­tin­ue serv­ing them.

" I ex­press my heart­felt grat­i­tude as well to my Cab­i­net col­leagues and oth­ers for their words of en­cour­age­ment and un­der­stand­ing, and to the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter for pro­vid­ing me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have served the na­tion.I am a firm be­liev­er in kar­ma and trust that the fu­ture will work it­self out through the life I have lived, the judg­ment of which I leave ul­ti­mate­ly to God. Thank you all."

Row­ley: Kam­la fight­ing for po­lit­i­cal life

Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley said while he was hap­py to see Shar­ma go this was how­ev­er, an in­di­ca­tion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was "fight­ing for her po­lit­i­cal life.""She be­lieves that we don't un­der­stand that her state­ments have to do with more with elec­tions than with prin­ci­ples.....so we are not im­pressed with her state­ments," Row­ley said.He added that Per­sad-Bisses­sar on­ly act­ed when the pub­lic dis­gust was too much for her to bear.

PM must have known–PNM

As head of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty coun­cil Per­sad-Bisses­sar must have had first-hand knowl­edge of the al­leged beat­ing and the probe in­volv­ing Shar­ma, PNM Sen­a­tor and Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi said yes­ter­day.He al­so ques­tioned why was Shar­ma giv­en the lux­u­ry to re­sign when for­mer min­is­ters Her­bert Vol­ney and Col­in Par­tap, who of­fered their res­ig­na­tions, were in­stead fired.

"It is in­ter­est­ing that the prime min­is­ter her­self has had ab­solute­ly no com­ment to make. It seems it is the Prime Min­is­ter's style to make bold com­ments on­ly when it is easy to do so and she al­lowed Shar­ma a priv­i­lege not af­ford­ed to the likes of Vol­ney and Par­tap. It is cer­tain­ly a demon­stra­tion of dou­ble stan­dards," Al-Rawi said.

He said a gen­er­al elec­tion must be called as it was the on­ly way cit­i­zens could be put out of their mis­ery and shame of be­ing gov­erned by a "rot­ting and de­com­pos­ing car­cass" that was the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment.