Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

UNC back­bencher Kelvin Ram­nath said yes­ter­day that he planned to file nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to con­test the Cou­va South seat, de­spite a plot by cer­tain peo­ple to un­der­mine him. Ram­nath was speak­ing at Gas­par­il­lo yes­ter­day, af­ter he threw his sup­port be­hind Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj. Ma­haraj and for­mer UWI Guild pres­i­dent Ravi Rati­ram are both ex­pect­ed to file nom­i­na­tions to­day at Rien­zi Com­plex to con­test the UNC safe seat of Tabaquite. Ram­nath, who has been a foun­da­tion mem­ber of the UNC, said ru­mours were cir­cu­lat­ing which gave the im­pres­sion that he was not in sup­port of UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. "Do not be­lieve these ru­mours...They are acts of sub­terfuge de­signed by sev­er­al peo­ple to give the im­pres­sion that we don't sup­port," he said.

"Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar was elect­ed by the peo­ple and the mem­bers of the peo­ple.�We have to re­spect the de­ci­sion of peo­ple. "There are cer­tain el­e­ments who be­lieve that we are against Per­sad-Bisses­sar. I want to make it clear that I have re­spect for her." He added that al­though he re­spect­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar, he was the kind of UNC politi­cian "who will con­tin­ue to speak out if cer­tain politi­cians con­tin­ued act in a man­ner that was not con­sis­tent with the core val­ues of the par­ty." Ram­nath said that there were cer­tain peo­ple who want­ed to con­test seats, even though they nev­er laboured in the con­stituen­cies. "When I look, I see some of the peo­ple who are pre­sent­ing them­selves as po­ten­tial can­di­dates, but I nev­er re­mem­ber see­ing them at all in any strug­gles," he said.

He added that the UNC was found­ed, not just to win elec­tions, but to en­sure that peo­ple had a de­cent liveli­hood. "I will be fil­ing my nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to­mor­row and I will be con­test­ing the elec­tions de­spite what my de­trac­tors might think," Ram­nath said. "It doesn't both­er me what the me­dia per­son­nel are spec­u­lat­ing. I want to say that what I stand for is con­sis­tent with the prin­ci­ples of the UNC, and I in­sist that my con­stituen­cy stand by these prin­ci­ples." Mean­while, po­ten­tial can­di­date for Tabaquite, Ravi Rati­ram, who spoke at a meet­ing last night, warned UNC sup­port­ers not to be dis­cour­aged by the turn of events. "One minute they crit­i­cis­ing the leader, and next minute they come to say they sup­port our leader," he said. "Don't be dis­cour­aged...be re­solved in the com­mit­ment to stay unit­ed," Rati­ram said.