Gail Alexan­der

If new Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Richie Sookhai wish­es to join the move­ment that has caused se­vere hard­ship, heartache and un­der­de­vel­op­ment in T&T – that’s not the UNC’s con­cern, says UNC deputy leader Jear­lean John.

This was John’s re­ply on Thurs­day when asked about Sookhai now be­ing with the PNM af­ter his fam­i­ly had been UNC for years.

On Tues­day, UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark re­port­ed­ly said he was ad­vised Sookhai was a for­mer UNC mem­ber but “had to check the records.”

For­mer UNC min­is­ters Su­ruj Ram­bachan and Vas­ant Bharath said yes­ter­day the Sookhai fam­i­ly had been UNC sup­port­ers over the years.

on Thurs­day, Sookhai told Guardian Me­dia he’s a PNM mem­ber and had been asked by the Prime Min­is­ter to serve the coun­try and had ac­cept­ed.

”To serve in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty the Gov­ern­ment sees fit,” he said.

“I’m anx­ious and ex­cit­ed to see where this takes me, since I’m here for the peo­ple of Ch­agua­nas and T&T. What­ev­er I can do to con­tribute to caus­es to help de­vel­op the coun­try, I’m there,” Sookhai added.

PNM of­fi­cials said Sookhai is tipped for a post in a min­istry ahead. Sookhai was In­vesTT deputy chair­man from 2015 to 2016.

On queries con­cern­ing Sookhai’s PNM ap­point­ment, John said, “The UNC is not con­cerned with who joins the PNM. Our job is to pro­tect those who are op­pressed by the PNM’s high cost of liv­ing ne­glect and con­tra­ven­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion lead­ing to the ero­sion of our democ­ra­cy.

“Our con­cern re­mains the cit­i­zens of our na­tion who con­tin­ue to see their fu­ture erod­ed each day by the PNM’s reck­less, un­car­ing gov­er­nance.”

Sookhai’s PNM de­but was al­so re­marked up­on by UNC Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts in a so­cial me­dia video. Roberts, in his “wel­come” to Sookhai, said, “But Kam­la is not there to make a next busi­ness­man rich­er.”

How­ev­er, Ram­bachan said, “Richie Sookhai is a bright, am­bi­tious per­son with a strong sense of com­mu­ni­ty. The UNC had al­ways known the fam­i­ly to have been UNC since Mr (Bas­deo) Pan­day’s days.

“But I’m not sur­prised Richie joined the PNM. I think a lot of it would have had to do with the frus­tra­tion that he, like many am­bi­tious peo­ple, have– find­ing it dif­fi­cult to lo­cate a con­trib­u­to­ry space in the UNC,” he said.

Ram­bachan added: “He’d have made a fine may­or of Ch­agua­nas with his skills and busi­ness acu­men. Mrs (Kam­la) Per­sad-Bisses­sar has to be care­ful she doesn’t let the bright young faces find them­selves cop­ing with the frus­tra­tion of not find­ing a space to con­tribute. The Prime Min­is­ter should con­sid­er plac­ing Richie as a ju­nior Trade Min­is­ter.”

Bharath said he knew Sookhai’s fa­ther had been a UNC sup­port­er.

“Many peo­ple Richie’s age are look­ing be­yond race to con­tribute to T&T’s de­vel­op­ment and it’s a good thing for peo­ple like him to get in­volved. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, T&T’s pol­i­tics is so po­larised and nasty it’s dif­fi­cult for bright young peo­ple to do so,” Bharath said.

Bharath not­ed neg­a­tive so­cial me­dia com­ments on Sookhai.

He said, “It shows you the kind of pol­i­tics the UNC’s us­ing and why peo­ple like Richie won’t get in­volved with them.”

He added: “I ap­plaud him for get­ting in­volved in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and I ap­plaud the PNM for ap­proach­ing him.”

Bharath al­so said, “Mr Sookhai is a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man. It’s be­cause of his voice that the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce be­came a na­tion­al voice on is­sues like crime and food prices.

“He’s very well re­spect­ed in the cen­tral com­mu­ni­ty. He’d be a strong po­lit­i­cal fig­ure in that re­gion, and Ch­agua­nas East, where he is from. Due to his work in the Cham­ber, busi­ness in­ter­ests and the fam­i­ly’s deep re­li­gious roots, he’ll be well-liked. So, the UNC can­not take these things for grant­ed that they’ll for­ev­er hold their seats based on race.”