In a sur­pris­ing move, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has se­lect­ed at­tor­ney De­vesh Ma­haraj over sen­a­tor Anil Roberts to con­test the Aranguez/St Joseph seat in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions. An­oth­er at­tor­ney, Wayne Sturge, has al­so been giv­en the nod for the To­co/San­gre Grande seat.

The UNC made the an­nounce­ment in a re­lease yes­ter­day, where Ma­haraj and Sturge were named among five can­di­dates se­lect­ed fol­low­ing last Thurs­day’s lat­est round of screen­ings.

Mara­bel­la West coun­cil­lor John Michael Al­i­bo­cas was al­so cho­sen for San Fer­nan­do East; for­mer T&T De­fence Force cor­po­ral Richard Smith for Trinci­ty/Mal­oney, and Dr Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj was giv­en the go-ahead for Arou­ca/Lopinot.

Ac­cord­ing to a bi­og­ra­phy pro­vid­ed by the UNC, Ma­haraj has been ac­tive in the par­ty since 1991 in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties and holds po­si­tions in oth­er so­cial sec­tors, in­clud­ing chair­man of the In­ter­na­tion­al Love All Serve All Ini­tia­tive and ad­vi­sor to the Casablan­ca Steel Or­ches­tra.

This brings to eight the to­tal num­ber of can­di­dates cho­sen thus far by the UNC.

In the par­ty’s first round of screen­ing, Sad­dam Ho­sein (Barataria/San Juan) and Van­dana Mo­hit (Ch­agua­nas East) were re-ap­point­ed for their cur­rent seats, while Dr Michael Dowlath was se­lect­ed for the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy of San Fer­nan­do West. — Jesse Ramdeo