SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The bat­tle is on for the seat of Cunu­pia on the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion as the count­down con­tin­ues to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Bye-Elec­tions on Mon­day 25 Jan­u­ary 2021.

Can­di­dates Rasheed “Patos” Ali (PNM) and Richard Sukdeo (UNC) filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers on Mon­day 4 Jan­u­ary 2021, at the of­fice of the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer on the South­ern Main Road, Cunu­pia. 

Ali was the first to file. He was es­cort­ed by a small en­tourage led by tas­sa drum­mers, who made the walk from his cam­paign of­fices lo­cat­ed 100 me­tres north of the of­fice of the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer. 

Af­ter suc­cess­ful­ly fil­ing his pa­pers, Ali said he plans to put the squeeze on the au­thor­i­ties to de­liv­er to the peo­ple.  70-year-old Ali, a pop­u­lar busi­ness­man from the area, said Cunu­pia has suf­fered too long from a lack of in­fra­struc­ture, bad roads and over­grown lots. Ali said it was high time that the PNM be giv­en the chance to de­liv­er to the peo­ple of Cunu­pia.

Ali said he was en­cour­aged by the peo­ple of Cunu­pia to get up and do some­thing. He said the com­mu­ni­ty was not all that well rep­re­sent­ed by the past MP and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Coun­cil­lor.

“We will find funds.  We will find a way to get things done,” the PNM can­di­date said.

Lennox Rat­tans­ingh, Ali’s cam­paign man­ag­er, said his can­di­date has al­ready hit the ground run­ning with a ro­bust walk­a­bout cam­paign. Rat­tans­ingh said all pro­to­cols re­gard­ing COVID-19 would be fol­lowed.

UNC can­di­date Richard Sukdeo showed up at the of­fice short­ly af­ter 10 am. He was ac­com­pa­nied by a mu­sic truck and sup­port­ers. Af­ter fil­ing his pa­pers, Sukdeo came out flash­ing his re­ceipt for the $2,000 fil­ing fee.

65-year-old Sukdeo, a re­tired pub­lic ser­vant, said his chances of win­ning are ex­cel­lent. He said the UNC has rep­re­sent­ed the peo­ple of Ch­agua­nas well at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el.  When asked if he may be the ey­ing the avail­able post of Deputy May­or of Ch­agua­nas, he told Guardian Me­dia:

“I can’t speak to that.  I am here just fil­ing these pa­pers as a coun­cil­lor.” 

Sukdeo said he plans to en­sure that is­sues sur­round­ing pub­lic health and crime are han­dled.

Sukdeo said he plans to cam­paign on­line and on the streets while ob­serv­ing all COVID-19 pro­to­cols. He said the elec­tion day ma­chin­ery was well oiled and he was ready to take the seat home for the UNC.

The seat be­came va­cant when Van­dana Mo­hit, the last coun­cil­lor, gave up the post to con­test the par­lia­men­tary seat for Ch­agua­nas East in the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.