SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­ber and at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la chant­ed, “Great is the PNM,” as he ac­com­pa­nied the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) can­di­date for Ch­agua­nas East, Richie Sookhai, who filed his Gen­er­al Elec­tion nom­i­na­tion pa­pers yes­ter­day.

Sookhai was the first of the can­di­dates for the con­stituen­cy to ar­rive at the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer’s Ram­saran Street, Ch­agua­nas lo­ca­tion.

Aside from Lal­la, Sookhai was al­so ac­com­pa­nied by his cam­paign man­ag­er Lennox Rat­tans­ingh and John Jaglal—a for­mer UNC sup­port­er who has now aligned him­self with the PNM.

Sookhai, who has been ac­tive­ly en­gag­ing with con­stituents, em­pha­sised the need for mean­ing­ful change.

“We know what the peo­ple want, and the on­ly way to achieve it is through re­al change—not hand­outs or gim­micks like they (re­fer­ring to the UNC) of­fer. It’s about ac­tion now. If the peo­ple want true rep­re­sen­ta­tion, that is what I am here to pro­vide,” Sookhai stat­ed.

Af­ter fil­ing his pa­pers, Sookhai was greet­ed by mem­bers of his fam­i­ly.

Mean­while, Lal­la, when ap­proached by re­porters who asked about his sup­port for Sookhai, de­clared, “Great is the PNM! Great is the PNM! And it will pre­vail.”

Lal­la re­signed from the UNC in Feb­ru­ary, say­ing he was frus­trat­ed by the lack of change and re­form in the par­ty. On­ly on Wednes­day, Lal­la at­tend­ed the PNM’s meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do.

But yes­ter­day, as Sookhai was com­plet­ing the process, UNC can­di­date Van­dana Mo­hit ar­rived with a large crowd of en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers ac­com­pa­nied by mu­sic. Their pres­ence cre­at­ed a live­ly at­mos­phere, as they danced and in­ter­act­ed with PNM ac­tivists on the com­pound.

Mo­hit had to wait for Lt Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al, of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) to com­plete his fil­ing be­fore she could pro­ceed. As she ex­it­ed the of­fice, sup­port­ers chant­ed, “Van­dana, Van­dana, Van­dana” while she proud­ly dis­played her re­ceipt.

“As of to­day, we will con­tin­ue work­ing tire­less­ly, hit­ting the streets every day to en­sure we form the next gov­ern­ment,” Mo­hit said.

Con­fi­dent in her chances, she added, “Ch­agua­nas East is my home, and the peo­ple here are my fam­i­ly. I feel com­plete with them by my side.”

Afi­fa Mo­hammed, of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF), ex­pressed op­ti­mism, stat­ing that she had re­ceived pos­i­tive feed­back from res­i­dents.

She ar­rived with less fan­fare when com­pared to the UNC and PNM can­di­dates, but had the same con­fi­dence.

“Peo­ple are say­ing they need change, they love the vi­sion of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front, and they ad­mire our leader, Mick­ela Pan­day. Ch­agua­nas East is ready to come home to the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front,” she as­sert­ed.

Din­di­al, who qui­et­ly filed his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers, crit­i­cised both the PNM and UNC, ar­gu­ing that they had failed to de­liv­er re­al progress in Ch­agua­nas East.

“The UNC had 15 years to do bet­ter, yet Ch­agua­nas should have been a city by now,” he re­marked.