RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Princes Town res­i­dents say they love their MP Bar­ry Padarath but feel hurt that he aban­doned them dur­ing COVID-19 lock­down.

Padarath flew out of the coun­try to be with his daugh­ter Se­jal in the Unit­ed States short­ly be­fore the lock­down of T&T’s bor­ders in late March.

Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day vis­it­ed his Princes Town con­stituen­cy of and spoke with res­i­dents, many of whom say they were suf­fer­ing from a lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Randy Sum­chan of School Trace, New Grant, said Padarath has not been around to as­sist those who put him in pow­er.

“School Trace has big, big holes. We can’t see Bar­ry and he is not do­ing any­thing,” Sum­chan said.
How­ev­er, ven­dor Jean Kow­lessar, of San­cho Road, said Padarath was a good MP who has al­ways kept in touch with his con­stituents. She said since he left T&T dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, their coun­cil­lor Gowrie Roop­nar­ine has been pick­ing up the slack.

“Bar­ry is a man who is al­ways on the ground help­ing peo­ple. He is a very good MP and I def­i­nite­ly want him to come back,” Kow­lessar said.

Arnold Ed­wards, a con­trac­tor of Seecha­ran Street, New Grant, al­so said Padarath has done a great job as an MP.

“He is very de­vot­ed to his con­stituents and we are sat­is­fied that he has done good so far but we are dis­ap­point­ed that he left us now. The peo­ple of Princes Town have prob­lems and he is not around to help us,” Ed­wards said.

He added that there was pre­vi­ous­ly a prob­lem with a drain in his com­mu­ni­ty and with­in a week Padarath got the prob­lem sort­ed out. 

“When we go to him he helps us. He is a good MP and I think he should come back to rep­re­sent us,” Ed­wards added.

Ron­dell Bis­nath, of St Croix Road, al­so said he loved Padarath as an MP but had mis­giv­ings about him re­turn­ing to the seat.

“He has done a good job but look at how he left us dur­ing COVID. He re­al­ly should be here. Right now he is not rep­re­sent­ing us so how will we vote for him if he is not around to help us now when we go­ing through the worst health cri­sis we have ever seen. This is not ac­cept­able at all,” Bis­nath said.

Busi­ness­woman Mag­gie Has­sanali al­so said she had no com­plaints about Padarath when it came to his per­for­mance as an MP. 

“Yes, I think he should go back,” Has­sanali said.

Ruben Ho­sein, from Mandin­go Road, said all of the po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives for Princes Town had failed the peo­ple.

“It doesn’t mat­ter who we put there. All of them is the same thing,” Ho­sein said.

A UNC source mean­while told Guardian Me­dia that screen­ing for the Princes Town seat took place on Tues­day night.

Padarath was one of sev­er­al prospects who filed nom­i­na­tion pa­pers. Con­tact­ed on this, UNC PRO Sen­a­tor Ani­ta Haynes said de­tails of the screen­ing process were con­fi­den­tial and it was up to the in­di­vid­ual nom­i­nees to dis­close de­tails.