GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A Hin­du pun­dit has blamed Op­po­si­tion and UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for any suf­fer­ing be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by East In­di­ans in this coun­try, say­ing she is un­wor­thy of lead­ing the par­ty and even bold­ly claim­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar does not like Hin­dus.

Over the week­end, pun­dit Satyanand Ma­habir Dubey, of the Trayam­bakesh­war Ma­hadev Mandir, told wor­ship­pers dur­ing a ser­vice, which was al­so streamed on­line, “not to make de mis­take and vote for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and she team - vote for Paray (Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray).”

He said as a pun­dit, he had a right to “look af­ter your wel­fare and tell you” and that “who vex, I don’t care”, as he wad­ed in­to the UNC leader, urg­ing wor­ship­pers not to vote for her and the Star team.

“She’s done noth­ing for us? She can­not win a gen­er­al elec­tion, she fight­ing to win a lo­cal elec­tion. Make sure and do not vote for her. She doh like Hin­du peo­ple. They on­ly play­ing a game with you,” Dubey al­leged.

He added, “Don’t vote for her, vote for Paray. She has done noth­ing for you. While she was in pow­er, no In­di­an chil­dren get per­ma­nent gov­ern­ment wok...In­di­ans are suf­fer­ing be­cause of Kam­la. Don’t make the mis­take and vote for she.”

As the record­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on­line yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed the pun­dit as a PNM op­er­a­tive.

“Those com­ments are ex­treme­ly dis­taste­ful and not fit for a cos­mopoli­tan so­ci­ety as ours. The UNC is a very di­verse par­ty. As leader of the UNC, I rep­re­sent all peo­ple equal­ly with­out fear or favour.

“It’s in­ter­est­ing that the pun­dit mak­ing these com­ments in sup­port of the oth­er slate is ac­tu­al­ly a PNM sup­port­er,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so dis­missed the pun­dit’s claim that she did not help In­di­ans while in gov­ern­ment.

“What is wrong with help­ing every­one? Peo­ple are just try­ing to live and be hap­py. Every­one de­serves love fair­ness and kind­ness,” she stressed.

UNC front­lin­er Bar­ry Padarath al­so crit­i­cised Dubey.

“We won’t al­low our par­ty to suc­cumb to PNM op­er­a­tives and Paray, which is one and the same. We rep­re­sent all the peo­ple of T&T and won’t be dragged in­to a re­li­gious/race war with any­one or or­gan­i­sa­tions- the mis­sion of the likes of these peo­ple is di­vi­sion,” he said.

Mean­while, Paray had no com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion.

A pic­ture of the pun­dit al­so sur­faced with him in a PNM t-shirt.

But yes­ter­day, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, Dubey dou­bled down on his claims. He al­so ad­mit­ted that he sup­port­ed
a PNM can­di­date in the 2016 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion. He said al­though he was a life­time mem­ber of the UNC, he didn’t “get a hear­ing” from par­ty of­fi­cials on is­sues he had at the time. He al­so con­test­ed a seat for the UNC in the 2013 LGE polls but lost.

Dubey said the coun­try was be­com­ing seg­re­gat­ed and “needs heal­ing and uni­ty”. He added that if peo­ple with the pow­er didn’t bring that, al­ter­na­tives had to be sought.

“We’re go­ing to change the UNC by bring­ing in new peo­ple. Paray may not be the leader but he’s open­ing the door to change,” the pun­dit said.

Mean­while, Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha sec­re­tary gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj said Dubey was not a mem­ber of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Ma­haraj dis­tanced the SDMS from Dubey.

“That per­son has no re­la­tion­ship with SDMS what­so­ev­er. We’re aware of his his­to­ry – he has noth­ing to do with the SDMS, he’s no mem­ber of the Pun­dits Parishad and he’s not a mem­ber of any of our tem­ples,” he said.

Ma­haraj added, “The SDMS isn’t sup­port­ing any­one in UNC’s elec­tion be­cause who­ev­er comes in­to pow­er - red, yel­low, white, I still have to deal with them as SDMS’ ad­min­is­tra­tive head. At this point in time, SDMS isn’t ad­vis­ing any of its mem­bers to sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty whether PNM, UNC, or who­ev­er.”