Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

"Good rid­dance to the last Ju­das - get ready to join the PNM in op­po­si­tion!"

That was the dis­missal from Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress front­lin­er Anil Roberts in Moru­ga last night, to the news that out­go­ing UNC Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly was at that time in a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing in San­gre Grande.

Ram­bal­ly - dressed in white - was seen seat­ed next to PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley at the meet­ing, where Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and PNM front­lin­ers spoke.

Af­ter Ram­bal­ly's, ap­pear­ance at the PNM's San­gre Grande meet­ing, Roberts, the host of the Moru­ga meet­ing, told the au­di­ence, "You must trust your leader. Your leader un­der­stands pol­i­tics of T&T bet­ter than each and every one of us. She has ex­pe­ri­enced brain and tes­tic­u­lar for­ti­tude to stand and fight. You must trust and be­lieve in your leader and let me tell you why.

"We are all unit­ed now un­der the leader but for the last two years and eight months, there were peo­ple 'in­side' who were claim­ing to be Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­bers - Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment who were ac­tive­ly try­ing to mash up the UNC! Try­ing to bring down our leader! They pre­tend­ed they were UNC. And now I see a pic­ture - the last Ju­das has gone to the Red team!"

Roberts con­tin­ued, "Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly is in a PNM meet­ing right now. I say to all of them: good rid­dance! Good­bye and off to the PNM in op­po­si­tion, as Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who fed you and who purged you, shall be the next prime min­is­ter with all of the coun­try sup­port­ing her!"

Ram­bal­ly, an at­tor­ney, was among the so-called dis­si­dent UNC MPs who sup­port­ed MP Rush­ton Paray's March 2024 chal­lenge to leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to hold in­ter­nal elec­tions.

The call-out was al­so sup­port­ed by MPs Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Dr Rai Rag­bir and Rod­ney Charles. Their views trig­gered bit­ter re­sponse from front­line UNC MPs loy­al to Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Af­ter pub­lic wran­gling be­tween the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots group and the UNC hi­er­ar­chy on in­ter­nal elec­tions, the poll was held in June 2024. The five MPs were part of a slate head­ed by Paray. Ram­bal­ly did not con­test but sup­port­ed the slate.

The UP slate lost to Per­sad-Bisses­sar's Stars team of loy­al­ist MPs. Ram­bal­ly and the oth­er four MPs were side­lined by the par­ty hi­er­ar­chy but con­tin­ued func­tion­ing in Par­lia­ment and were dubbed by the PNM Gov­ern­ment as the "UNC B team."

All of the MPs, ex­cept for Charles - who was re­tir­ing - filed nom­i­na­tion to con­test their re­spec­tive seats in the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. Rag­bir and Ram­bal­ly lat­er with­drew from be­ing screened by the UNC's screen­ing team. Rag­bir then re­signed from UNC. Paray and Haynes-Al­leyne were re­ject­ed as can­di­dates. All five have main­tained low pro­files dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign.

How­ev­er, their UP col­league Lar­ry Lal­la, SC, at­tend­ed PNM's Wood­ford Square ral­ly on March 16 and lat­er spoke on a PNM plat­form in Tu­na­puna, slam­ming the UNC.

Kam­la: 190 lawyers help­ing UNC

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who sub­se­quent­ly spoke at the Moru­ga meet­ing, didn't men­tion Ram­bal­ly's PNM "de­but." But in ref­er­enc­ing UNC's elec­tion pre­pared­ness, she point­ed out that 190 at­tor­neys had come for­ward to as­sist the par­ty and can­di­dates for elec­tion.

"The House of Ris­ing Sun has many rooms and there's a space and a place for every­one!" she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for sup­port for Moru­ga can­di­date Michelle Ben­jamin, blam­ing the PNM for the area's is­sues. She de­tailed UNC's plans to sway youths away from gangs and to fur­ther the agri­cul­ture sec­tor.

"We are on the cusp of one of the most mo­men­tous elec­tions in our beloved na­tion’s his­to­ry. What you de­cide on Mon­day in the vot­ing booth will de­ter­mine your fu­ture and your fam­i­ly's for gen­er­a­tions to come. We have the ini­tia­tives, we have the so­lu­tions, we have the pur­pose," she added.

So­ca star Neil "Iw­er" George's per­for­mance of "The Peo­ple want Kam­la" con­clud­ed the meet­ing.