Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

A for­mer UNC MP has de­scribed as “deeply dis­ap­point­ing” a plat­form com­ment by the par­ty’s Tabaquite can­di­date Sean Sobers who claimed for­mer Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir as “pass­ing through like a va­grant.”

Sobers took a swipe at Rag­bir at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Ma­yaro on Sat­ur­day night while prais­ing the par­ty’s new can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy, Shiv­an­na Sam.

“I know that in her con­tri­bu­tion and in her time in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la she will demon­strate the re­al UNC steel that Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la has grown ac­cus­tomed to—save and ex­cept for Dr Rag­bir be­ing there for some time, pass­ing through like a va­grant,” he said.

The com­ment drew a quick re­sponse from for­mer Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray who said it was “be­neath the dig­ni­ty of po­lit­i­cal de­bate.”

Paray, who was banned from speak­ing on the UNC plat­form in 2023 af­ter call­ing for in­ter­nal elec­tions and re­forms, de­fend­ed Rag­bir’s record.

“That kind of lan­guage has no place in pol­i­tics—es­pe­cial­ly when di­rect­ed at some­one like Dr Rai, who has served this coun­try with dig­ni­ty both as a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al and as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment,” Paray said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

“Dr Rag­bir is a qual­i­fied fam­i­ly physi­cian, trained at UWI and in the UK, who has worked tire­less­ly for the peo­ple of Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la. Even when he stepped away from front­line pol­i­tics, he did so re­spect­ful­ly, stand­ing on prin­ci­ple and speak­ing truth to lead­er­ship,” Paray said.

Rag­bir made head­lines dur­ing his tenure when he vot­ed against the Op­po­si­tion on a crit­i­cal mo­tion in Par­lia­ment. He al­so pub­licly chal­lenged UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Paray, who stressed that po­lit­i­cal dis­agree­ments should not de­scend in­to per­son­al at­tacks, said: “Call­ing some­one a va­grant be­cause you dis­agree with them po­lit­i­cal­ly is just low.

“We can ar­gue pol­i­cy. We can chal­lenge de­ci­sions. But once we start tear­ing each oth­er down per­son­al­ly, we’re mov­ing back­wards as a coun­try. Re­spect is not a weak­ness. It’s a stan­dard we should all up­hold—es­pe­cial­ly those of us who want to lead.”

The UNC meet­ing in Ma­yaro, which was not at­tend­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar, was al­so ad­dressed by deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John who de­clared: “We are ready to gov­ern. We know how to gov­ern. When we do things, it’s well done, we know the hap­pi­ness of our peo­ple is the true goal of gov­er­nance and eq­ui­ty.”

John al­so took aim at for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, claim­ing in­ter­nal polls show wan­ing pub­lic sup­port for them.

“I heard Row­ley polls bad enough as an in­di­vid­ual, but I heard Stu­art Young is eight points be­low Row­ley. He’s be­low the white line in the road. Where are they go­ing with that?” she said.

She de­scribed April 28 as Free­dom Day as she called on sup­port­ers to vote out the PNM.

“Be­come a dri­ver for free­dom, be­come a street cap­tain for free­dom. Or­gan­ise a call cen­tre tonight with your friends for free­dom,” she said.