As T&T record­ed its 13th COVID-19 death, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is call­ing on the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to de­sist from har­bour­ing di­vi­sive­ness fol­low­ing Face­book posts by new­ly elect­ed Ch­agua­nas East MP Van­dana Mo­hit stat­ing that the spike in cas­es was the Gov­ern­ment's kar­ma.
Mo­hit wrote: "COVID has turned on the PNM. Kar­ma." 
PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing said giv­en the in­creas­ing case­load that the pub­lic health sys­tem was over­see­ing, it is time for the coun­try to com­bat the virus as a unit­ed front. Leza­ma-Lee Sing said Mo­hit's sum­ma­tion that the COVID-19 spike was kar­ma was un­for­tu­nate and "down­right reck­less."

"This as the Min­is­ter of Health ar­tic­u­lat­ed this morn­ing, it is re­al­ly about per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. We can­not blame a gov­ern­ment or op­po­si­tion, but we must en­cour­age peo­ple to be re­spon­si­ble," Leza­ma-Lee Sing said.
Mo­hit's post brought her wide­spread con­dem­na­tion. UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Khadi­jah Ameen, mean­while, sup­port­ed the post, com­ment­ing that, "The Govt that asked the pop­u­la­tion to vote for them be­cause of their 'ex­cel­lent han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion', not so?"
Fol­low­ing crit­i­cism, Ameen, the re­cent­ly elect­ed MP for St Au­gus­tine, fur­ther com­ment­ed: "It's a ques­tion ac­tu­al­ly. And the an­swer is yes. You could screen­shot and say what­ev­er you like. Doesn't make it less truth. Car­ry on."
In seek­ing to clar­i­fy her po­si­tion in an­oth­er post, Mo­hit wrote, "So let me be very spe­cif­ic. The lev­el of in­ti­ma­cy 'good man­age­ment' shown by the PNM to COVID-19 pri­or to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion has gone through the win­dow. You are back in the Gov­ern­ment, the use of COVID, in many dif­fer­ent ways, worked in your favour, right? What's your RE­AL PLAN that elec­tion is over? I DON'T speak on in­di­vid­u­als, I NEV­ER go in­to this fight."

UNC ac­tivist and for­mer food pro­duc­tion min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj al­so con­demned Mo­hit's com­ments. Ma­haraj wrote in a Face­book post: “They’re just get­ting start­ed. Five more years of kinder­garten mind­less­ness and psy­cho­path­ic fol­ly… This is what the bril­liant young MPs have to con­tribute to the na­tion in a health cri­sis…Do you agree with the state­ment that it’s kar­ma and COVID has turned on the PNM? Was Dr Tim Gopeesingh a vic­tim of PNM Kar­ma?”
Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Mo­hit, but her phone went to voice­mail on two calls. UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John did not com­ment, on­ly say­ing that ques­tions should be di­rect­ed to Mo­hit. There was al­so no an­swer from deputy po­lit­i­cal leader David Lee and pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Ani­ta Haynes.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing said now that Mo­hit is am MP, she has a du­ty of care in how she ap­proach­es na­tion­al is­sues and should put emo­tions aside to treat with a virus that is plagu­ing the world. As for Ameen, Lee Singh said she should know bet­ter, hav­ing been in pol­i­tics for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years. Ameen served as the St Au­gus­tine South coun­cil­lor for 10 years be­fore her el­e­va­tion to the chair­man of the Tun­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion in 2010. Be­tween 2015 and 2020, she served as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor. 
"Now a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, she, more than any­body else, should know that to in­cite that kind of reck­less­ness and down­right lack of bal­ance is in­im­i­cal to the peo­ple of T&T. I call on both of them to cease and de­sist from this kind of ac­tion that will lead us in­to an abyss of di­vi­sive­ness."
Leza­ma-Lee Sing al­so ex­tend­ed best wish­es of re­cov­ery to for­mer Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Tim Gopeesingh and oth­ers who are cur­rent­ly bat­tling COVID-19 in­fec­tions.
"COVID-19 does not see par­ty cards, pro­fes­sion, age or gen­der. It is an un­holy beast rav­aging the peo­ple of the world. We im­plore peo­ple to wear masks, wash their hands, stay at home and prac­tice so­cial dis­tanc­ing so that we can help flat­ten the curve."