sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Sev­er­al out­go­ing Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MPs have thanked con­stituents and bid them farewell.

Last Sun­day, the par­ty an­nounced its new can­di­date team for up­com­ing Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. Out of the cur­rent 18 in­cum­bents, eight were re­tained and 10 re­placed.

Yes­ter­day, some of those re­placed reached out to ex­press thanks to con­stituents and oth­ers.

In a mes­sage to con­stituents, Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein, who was re­placed in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la by Dr Rai Rag­bir, stat­ed, “To all my ab­solute­ly won­der­ful con­stituents, it has been my ut­most plea­sure to serve you. I thank my Lord and Sav­iour Je­sus Christ for grant­i­ng me favour be­yond mea­sure to ably com­plete no­table in­fra­struc­tur­al projects I nev­er imag­ined pos­si­ble in op­po­si­tion, but then, with Christ, all things are pos­si­ble to them that be­lieve.”

She added, “I wish to ex­press my grat­i­tude to my po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for al­low­ing the priv­i­lege of serv­ing you. Thank you for invit­ing me in­to your homes and your lives. I will al­ways have fond mem­o­ries of you....”

Dr Bhoe Tewarie, who was re­placed in Ca­roni Cen­tral by Arnold Ram, al­so reached out to con­stituents, say­ing, “Beau­ti­ful peo­ple of Ca­roni Cen­tral, I thank you for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve you for the last five years. It was a joy and a priv­i­lege.

“You em­braced me and I was able to build good com­mu­ni­ty spir­it every­where in Ca­roni Cen­tral. You are the salt of the earth and even though I got im­por­tant things done for you, I wish I could have done more. Be strong, brave and pro­duc­tive as you al­ways are...”

Fazal Karim, re­placed in Ch­agua­nas East by Van­dana Mo­hit, said to con­stituents, “Work­ing for and along­side you has been one of the great­est ho­n­ours and joys of my ca­reer, and my life. I thank you for plac­ing your faith in me, and pray you will con­tin­ue to grow and pros­per, build­ing on all of the work we’ve done to­geth­er for the last five years. May God bless you and our beloved Na­tion.”

Ra­mona Ram­di­al, who was re­placed in Cou­va North by Ravi Rati­ram, told her con­stituents: “To my won­der­ful con­stituents, I want to thank you for all the love and sup­port you’ve giv­en to me as your MP from 2010-2020. This fa­mil­ial re­la­tion­ship grew from strength to strength and we en­dured the chal­lenges of try­ing to make the con­stituen­cy of Cou­va North a mod­el one.“
Ram­di­al de­tailed ac­com­plish­ments of her tenure from gov­ern­ment to op­po­si­tion. She end­ed by thank­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar for al­low­ing her the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve two terms and for sup­port­ing her when she got mar­ried and had chil­dren. She pledged con­tin­ued sup­port to her leader and the par­ty.

Con­gress of the Peo­ple’s Prakash Ra­mad­har, re­placed in St Au­gus­tine by Khadi­jah Ameen, said via a state­ment, “At a time of high cri­sis, T&T needs the best of each and every one of us. I do hope and pray those who are suc­cess­ful and those who may not be, may their am­bi­tion to serve not be di­min­ished and that, we, the peo­ple, get the best you can pos­si­bly give.

“I haven’t put my­self for­ward as a can­di­date for any par­ty, nor have I screened for any­one. This is a de­ci­sion I took some time ago. This coun­try is in need of ser­vice, in or out of of­fice, and it’s my in­ten­tion to al­ways do that which is right and prop­er to the ben­e­fit of my coun­try to­day, and pre­pare for a bet­ter fu­ture.”

He al­so thanked Per­sad-Bisses­sar and his UNC col­leagues, “Notwith­stand­ing I didn’t be­long to their par­ty, I was treat­ed as an in­de­pen­dent and for that I am very grate­ful.’’

Ra­mad­har de­tailed what the PP Gov­ern­ment achieved and added, “My in­tent was al­ways no­ble and I did my best to lift the pol­i­tics in this coun­try.”

He al­so thanked con­stituents.

“It will be one of the high­lights of my life in your ser­vice. I thank you for that.”