New­ly-ap­point­ed Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) sen­a­tor Di­ane Baldeo- Chadeesingh was dis­missed yes­ter­day as the TV6 week­end an­chor with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. The deputy head of news at the sta­tion, Sharon Hamil­ton, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, con­firmed her dis­missal. "She was dis­missed be­cause there is a con­flict of in­ter­est," Hamil­ton said yes­ter­day.

Hamil­ton said for one thing, the sta­tion was not aware that its week­end an­chor was in talks with the Op­po­si­tion par­ty. "The sta­tion was not aware at all of any po­lit­i­cal plans," she said. Hamil­ton said the sta­tion on­ly found out when PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is­sued a me­dia state­ment nam­ing Baldeo- Chadeesingh one of three new sen­a­tors. But Baldeo-Chadeesingh, in a sub­se­quent in­ter­view, said there was noth­ing sin­is­ter in her fail­ure to com­mu­ni­cate her move to the sta­tion.

She said as a free­lance news an­chor, she worked pri­mar­i­ly through head of news Do­minic Kaliper­sad. "But he was on va­ca­tion and I want­ed him to be the first to know," Baldeo- Chadeesingh said. "Some­one who is there in his ab­sence took it up­on them­selves to get back to me be­fore I could get to them." While she ad­mit­ted she had been in talks with the PNM for some time, she said she did not have any po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions un­til re­cent­ly.

"I got tired of on­ly read­ing what peo­ple were say­ing, es­pe­cial­ly when I know I have a con­tri­bu­tion that I could make," she said. She said she was dri­ven to en­ter pol­i­tics be­cause of the cur­rent "state of af­fairs." Baldeo-Chadeesingh, who al­so owns a train­ing com­pa­ny and is a pro­to­col con­sul­tant, said there was no bad blood be­tween her­self and TV6 af­ter the move. "I build bridges, I don't burn them," she said.

She joins Avinash Singh, who con­test­ed and lost the Ju­ly 29 Ch­agua­nas by-elec­tion against In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty leader Jack Warn­er, and long-time PNM mem­ber Camille Robin­son-Reg­is in the Sen­ate. The three will re­place out­go­ing sen­a­tors Pene­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, Fitzger­ald Hinds and MP for St Joseph Ter­rence Deyals­ingh. Row­ley made the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day, just two days af­ter a T&T Guardian ex­clu­sive broke the news that par­ty stal­wart Beck­les would be re­placed in the Sen­ate.

Singh did not re­spond to calls but post­ed a state­ment on the so­cial net­work­ing site Face­book thank­ing Row­ley for the "op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve in the ca­pac­i­ty." "His record con­tin­ues to be proven and his lead­er­ship cred­i­ble.

This op­por­tu­ni­ty reaf­firms his com­mit­ment to young peo­ple and it will give a voice to thou­sands of cit­i­zens and in par­tic­u­lar farm­ers, es­pe­cial­ly in cen­tral Trinidad, who now have rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Up­per House of our Par­lia­ment," he wrote. Robin­son-Reg­is ini­tial­ly said she could not speak and asked to be called back with­in an hour and a half when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, but did not an­swer or re­turn lat­er calls.