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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Paray to consult constituents if rejected as candidate by UNC

by

19 days ago
20250225
Mayaro MP Rushton Paray, centre, with daughter Kavita and wife Nelisha at the UNC’s screening at the party’s headquarters on February 17.

Mayaro MP Rushton Paray, centre, with daughter Kavita and wife Nelisha at the UNC’s screening at the party’s headquarters on February 17.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

So-called Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) “dis­si­dent,” Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, says if he is un­able to se­cure his ex­ist­ing can­di­da­cy, he’ll en­gage in open di­a­logue with the peo­ple of Ma­yaro, and any de­ci­sion about his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture will be made with their in­put and best in­ter­ests in mind.

“... Their voic­es and con­cerns are my guid­ing force,” Paray said yes­ter­day.

He was re­ply­ing to ques­tions on if he was look­ing at his op­tions or look­ing at third par­ties af­ter be­ing screened by the UNC last week.

Paray was screened along with Ma­yaro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er and UNC in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions of­fi­cer Nicholas Mor­ris. The lat­ter two are tipped as fron­trun­ners for the seat.

The UNC re­sumes screen­ing this evening to tie up what of­fi­cials de­scribed as “loose ends,” in­clud­ing La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro and some Cen­tral ar­eas. The par­ty ex­pects to com­plete screen­ing by the end of the month.

On his un­cer­tain sit­u­a­tion with the Ma­yaro can­di­da­cy, Paray yes­ter­day said, “I al­ways con­sid­er my op­tions, not just for my per­son­al growth but for the ben­e­fit of those I serve. Lead­er­ship is about adapt­abil­i­ty and be­ing open to op­por­tu­ni­ties that can cre­ate mean­ing­ful change. My pri­or­i­ty re­mains to con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly, whether in my cur­rent role or any oth­er av­enue that al­lows me to up­lift my com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try.

“My pri­ma­ry fo­cus is to con­tin­ue serv­ing the peo­ple in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty al­lows me to be most ef­fec­tive. Pub­lic ser­vice is not just about hold­ing a po­si­tion—it’s about mak­ing a dif­fer­ence, dri­ving progress, and ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies that im­prove the lives of cit­i­zens. Whether in pol­i­tics, busi­ness, or com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, my ded­i­ca­tion to ser­vice re­mains un­wa­ver­ing.”

On whether he’d join an­oth­er par­ty and which one, Paray replied, “My loy­al­ty has al­ways been to the peo­ple, not just a po­lit­i­cal par­ty. If I’m un­able to se­cure my ex­ist­ing can­di­da­cy, I’ll en­gage in open di­a­logue with the peo­ple of Ma­yaro, as their voic­es and con­cerns are my guid­ing force. Any de­ci­sion about my po­lit­i­cal fu­ture will be made with their in­put and best in­ter­ests in mind.”

Fel­low so-called “dis­si­dent” MP Dr Rai Rag­bir, who re­fused to be screened by the UNC’s screen­ing team for his Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la seat, was al­so asked about his op­tions.

Rag­bir replied, “I’ll con­tin­ue to serve my con­stituents dili­gent­ly and with dig­ni­ty un­til my term ends. While I do not know what the Lord has in store for me next, I trust He will re­veal His plans in due time.

“Cur­rent­ly my fo­cus is on prepar­ing with con­stituents to cel­e­brate Ma­ha Shiv­ra­tri and to wel­come the holy month of Ra­madan. I al­so ex­tend warm wish­es to the na­tion for a joy­ful Car­ni­val sea­son. As we em­brace these fes­tiv­i­ties, I urge every­one to pri­ori­tise their health, cel­e­brate re­spon­si­bly, es­pe­cial­ly re­gard­ing al­co­hol con­sump­tion. Mod­er­a­tion is key.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne - who was screened last week along with three oth­ers - and Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who was screened in a first batch of nom­i­nees for Ch­agua­nas West, were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

Peo­ple be­ing ap­proached for PNM Tabaquite seats

Mean­while, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Tabaquite unit is ex­pect­ed to sub­mit its nom­i­nees to the par­ty im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Car­ni­val.

On Feb­ru­ary 17, the unit was giv­en two weeks to seek nom­i­nees to re­place ini­tial prospec­tive can­di­date Anil Ramjit, who was dropped as the prospec­tive can­di­date by the par­ty last week.

PNM of­fi­cials said about five peo­ple have been ap­proached to seek nom­i­na­tion for the seat, but noth­ing was con­firmed.

PNM’s Tabaquite chair­man Cur­tis Shade said he couldn’t speak when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, as he was ”hav­ing a ses­sion” with peo­ple. He didn’t an­swer calls sub­se­quent­ly.


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