RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@gmail.com

UNC lead­er­ship chal­lenger Vas­ant Bharath said last night that he will try again un­til he oust Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as po­lit­i­cal leader.

Speak­ing to the me­dia at Doc’s Ranch in Philip­pine as he wait­ed on re­sults last night, Bharath said he was “qui­et­ly con­fi­dent” of win­ning the po­si­tion.

“We are qui­et­ly con­fi­dent in the work we have done and that it will take us past the vic­to­ry line,” Bharath said.

His com­ments came be­fore he con­ced­ed the elec­tion af­ter re­sults showed over­whelm­ing sup­port for Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

He added that he was very proud of his team.

“They could not have done any more in the six-week pe­ri­od. If we are not suc­cess­ful, we will come again be­cause if we are to re­main mem­bers of the UNC we want to get in­to gov­ern­ment. There is no point in stay­ing in an or­gan­i­sa­tion that con­tin­ues to fail and not ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for its fail­ure so it could im­prove its chances and we will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for that change,” Bharath added.

He al­so not­ed that there were a num­ber of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in many con­stituen­cies.

“Peo­ple were be­ing al­lowed to vote once they were vot­ing on the Star slate and they were al­lowed to vote even if their names were not on the list,” he added.

Bharath said oth­ers in­clud­ing his fa­ther who is an orig­i­nal mem­ber, was not giv­en the chance to vote.

“There was a sit­u­a­tion where we had to call the Elec­tions Com­mit­tee be­cause two mem­bers of Par­lia­ment al­most took up res­i­dence in two of the polling sta­tions and their pres­ence was in­tim­i­dat­ing to vot­ers,” Bharath said.

He not­ed that peo­ple who had open­ly de­clared their sup­port for Per­sad- Bisses­sar had been work­ing as polling agents and pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers.

“That clear­ly leaves some lev­el of bias. But you know, it is what it is and we are try­ing to change the cul­ture of the par­ty and al­so change the way we do things so peo­ple can see us as an at­trac­tive al­ter­na­tive to the PNM,” Bharath said.

He said in ar­eas like Bar­rack­pore, Na­pari­ma and at SWW­TU in Laven­tille con­stituen­cies there were ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

“In Princes Town we had a fra­cas where (name called) went in and was in­tim­i­dat­ing peo­ple while in St Au­gus­tine, a num­ber of peo­ple were not al­lowed to vote,” Bharath said.

He not­ed that his role in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Roadmap to Re­cov­ery was well-in­ten­tioned and if it hurt his chances in the elec­tions, he did not mind.

“Politi­cians have to think na­tion­al­ly and think coun­try be­fore par­ty and I will al­ways do that. If I lost votes, then I’m hap­py to do just that be­cause I will al­ways put the coun­try be­fore any par­ty.”

Bharat said he was per­son­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed that on­ly about 12,000 peo­ple came out to vote.

“This shows there is a deep dis­en­chant­ment with the cur­rent lead­er­ship. We have come out of a gen­er­al elec­tion and we as a par­ty got on­ly 10 per cent of the vot­ers to come out. That is an in­dict­ment on the lead­er­ship of this par­ty,” Bharath said.

He not­ed, “It tells you that our own peo­ple and sup­port­ers are not in­ter­est­ed be­cause they don’t see the UNC as a vi­able op­tion. That lev­el of dis­en­chant­ment with the UNC.”

Bharath said he vis­it­ed 19 con­stituents and the UNC sup­port­ers ex­pressed sen­ti­ments of “aban­don­ment, dis­il­lu­sion­ment, vic­tim­i­sa­tion.”

He said un­due pres­sure should not be placed on the elec­torate to sup­port the in­cum­bent when they need­ed change.