For­mer Cou­va South Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Rudranath In­dars­ingh says he has not been promised any po­si­tion in Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment but in­sists there is no rift with his po­lit­i­cal leader.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar led the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress to a 26-13 vic­to­ry over the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), while the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty se­cured two seats in last week’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

Al­though 32 in­di­vid­u­als were sworn in­to her Gov­ern­ment on Sat­ur­day, the out­spo­ken for­mer MP, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as the op­po­si­tion’s shad­ow labour min­is­ter, was not ap­point­ed to a min­is­te­r­i­al or sen­a­to­r­i­al po­si­tion.

His ab­sence sparked ques­tions but In­dars­ingh sug­gest­ed there may have been pro­vi­sions with­in the coali­tion agree­ment that ne­ces­si­tat­ed his ex­clu­sion.

“It was a UNC and a coali­tion of in­ter­ests and so on. And I am sure I’ve done noth­ing that may have brought my­self in­to dis­re­pute, the po­lit­i­cal leader or the par­ty in­to dis­re­pute,” he said.

“My­self and my wife, we at­tend­ed the swear­ing-in of the Cab­i­net. We were in con­ver­sa­tion with the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and all Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment. So, if peo­ple are look­ing in­to cre­ate, as they say, ku­choor or mis­chief as they say, there’s ab­solute­ly no bad blood be­tween my­self, and the Prime Min­is­ter or any mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment,” he added.

While he’s no longer in Par­lia­ment, the vet­er­an trade union­ist and politi­cian said his com­mit­ment to the UNC and its leader re­mains un­wa­ver­ing.

“I’m a life mem­ber of the UNC and I made it clear from the start; I will con­tin­ue to ar­tic­u­late and ad­vance the in­ter­ests of the par­ty,” he said. “My loy­al­ty has nev­er wa­vered.” Re­flect­ing on a ca­reer that spans more than three decades, in­clud­ing 19 years in the trade union move­ment and 15 years in Par­lia­ment, In­dars­ingh said he’s proud of his ser­vice, not on­ly to Cou­va South, but to peo­ple across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

He re­called his ear­ly po­lit­i­cal jour­ney, which be­gan at the age of 14 when he left Hillview Col­lege to meet UNC founder the late Bas­deo Pan­day at the Rien­zi Com­plex. That meet­ing, he said, set him on a life­long path of pub­lic ser­vice through the Unit­ed Labour Front (ULF), the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), Club 88, and even­tu­al­ly, the UNC.

Now, In­dars­ingh is fo­cused on fam­i­ly life, tak­ing time to un­wind and re­con­nect. “I just want to re­lax for a few days, spend more time with my wife and daugh­ters,” he shared.

One of his daugh­ters is prepar­ing to com­plete her fi­nal year of law at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, while the oth­er is con­tin­u­ing her stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wa­ter­loo in Cana­da.

“I’m in­cred­i­bly proud of them, and of my wife, who put her ca­reer on hold to give them that emo­tion­al sup­port and sta­bil­i­ty,” he added.

Still ac­tive in pub­lic dis­course, In­dars­ingh said he has no in­ten­tion of dis­ap­pear­ing from the na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion. Ef­forts to con­tact the Prime Min­is­ter were un­suc­cess­ful.