A pe­ti­tion has been start­ed call­ing for the re­moval of Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar from the Par­lia­ment.

The pe­ti­tion was start­ed yes­ter­day by econ­o­mist Mar­la Dukha­ran on the on­line pe­ti­tion plat­form, Change.Org, af­ter a so­cial me­dia furore de­vel­oped over a com­ment Per­sad-Bisses­sar made in re­la­tion to Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is.

Just hours be­fore, while Per­sad-Bisses­sar was speak­ing at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) meet­ing in Princes Town, she said, “At least I have a name from my an­ces­tors. Where you got yours from? Your name is that of a slave-mas­ter.”

At the time, she was re­spond­ing to Robin­son-Reg­is’ use of her (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) full name dur­ing a PNM meet­ing last week.

By 5.30 pm yes­ter­day, 140 peo­ple had signed Dukha­ran’s pe­ti­tion, ti­tled, “Re­move Kam­la Sushi­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar from the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

In the de­scrip­tion, Dukha­ran wrote, “The Op­po­si­tion Leader, Mrs Kam­la Sushi­la Per­sad-Bises­sar, re­cent­ly stat­ed on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form in Trinidad and To­ba­go “At least I have a name from my an­ces­tors. Where you got yours from? Your name is that of a slave­mas­ter!”

“Racism has NO PLACE in our coun­try, “where every creed and race finds an equal place.” She needs to go. And every­one who shares her racist views needs to get a clear mes­sage that this be­hav­iour will not be tol­er­at­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It ends now.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Dukha­ran yes­ter­day but she de­clined to com­ment.

In her posts on Twit­ter, how­ev­er, Dukha­ran wrote, “I sin­cere­ly hope that Kam­la’s re­marks do one good thing—de­stroy the UNC and make room for a third par­ty.”

Some­time lat­er, when she post­ed a link to the pe­ti­tion, she wrote, “This woman is dis­gust­ing. She is an em­bar­rass­ment to our coun­try and to women. What a lega­cy.”

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