Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj has fired back at one po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst, main­tain­ing that his or­gan­i­sa­tion does not align nor en­dorse any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj took aim at Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, over his com­ments in a news ar­ti­cle sug­gest­ing that the UNC was seek­ing to re­move the Ma­ha Sab­ha's in­flu­ence from the par­ty.

In the ar­ti­cle, re­port­ed by Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, head­lined "An­a­lysts: Kam­la has re­moved Pan­day, Ma­ha Sab­ha in­flu­ence from the UNC," Dr Ra­goonath con­tend­ed that the res­ig­na­tion of for­mer Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly from the UNC was in­dica­tive of the sep­a­ra­tion.

"The sug­ges­tion was made in the past that in 2020, when Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly was se­lect­ed by the UNC, that was a Ma­ha Sab­ha plant. Of course, this time around I don’t think the Ma­ha Sab­ha has any foothold amongst the can­di­dates, the clos­est they would have come would have been a Kiel Tak­lals­ingh,” Ra­goonath sug­gest­ed.

In the re­lease yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Ma­haraj in­sist­ed the SDMS is a re­li­gious and cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tion and does not in­volve it­self in ac­tive pol­i­tics.

"So let it be clear­ly stat­ed that: the SDMS does not en­dorse, sup­port or align it­self with any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. We are, and have al­ways been, a re­li­gious and cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tion, not a po­lit­i­cal ap­pa­ra­tus. The no­tion that the SDMS can be "purged" from a po­lit­i­cal par­ty with which we are not af­fil­i­at­ed is il­log­i­cal," Ma­haraj said.

"We al­so feel com­pelled to ad­vise po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts and me­dia com­men­ta­tors, if you do not un­der­stand the SDMS or its role in so­ci­ety, it is best to avoid con­jec­ture. The SDMS is nei­ther a po­lit­i­cal ve­hi­cle nor a po­lit­i­cal par­ty group of any pur­port­ed po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty. To frame us with­in such a nar­ra­tive is in­ac­cu­rate and frankly, dis­re­spect­ful to the thou­sands of cit­i­zens we serve in the spheres of re­li­gion, ed­u­ca­tion and cul­ture."

Ma­haraj added, how­ev­er, that his mem­bers are free to pur­sue po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

"SDMS-af­fil­i­at­ed in­di­vid­u­als have his­tor­i­cal­ly en­gaged across a spec­trum of po­lit­i­cal par­ties. These choic­es are per­son­al - not in­sti­tu­tion­al. The re­cent res­ig­na­tion of our first as­sis­tant sec­re­tary gen­er­al, who rep­re­sent­ed the UNC as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, was a de­ci­sion tak­en weeks ago, well be­fore any tirade about a "purge." This res­ig­na­tion was mere­ly the fi­nal step in a broad­er and al­ready well-un­der­stood sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the SDMS and the UNC," he said.

Fol­low­ing a com­plaint lodged by the SDMS about the state­ment at­trib­uted to him, Dr Ra­goonath is­sued an apol­o­gy to the or­gan­i­sa­tion in a let­ter dat­ed April 8. Ra­goonath al­so pro­vid­ed fur­ther con­text, stat­ing that his analy­sis was made on a re­cent state­ment by UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that she had purged her par­ty. He said his as­sess­ment was that he be­lieved Per­sad-Bisses­sar was sug­gest­ing groups like the Ma­ha Sab­ha would have no more in­flu­ence in the par­ty. He said this was based on the fact that where­as in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, the UNC se­lect­ed a se­nior mem­ber of the SDMS in the per­son of Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly as a can­di­date, in the UNC 2025 list of can­di­dates there is no sit­ting SDMS ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber.

In his apol­o­gy, Ra­goonath at­tempt­ed to clar­i­fy his ear­li­er state­ment, say­ing, "... it was in the pub­lic do­main that Mr Ram­bal­ly, as a sit­ting ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the SDMS, was screened by the UNC as a prospec­tive can­di­date for the 2025 elec­tions. Sub­se­quent to his screen­ing, he, how­ev­er, re­quest­ed not to be con­sid­ered and fol­lowed that up with a for­mal res­ig­na­tion from the par­ty. I am now led to be­lieve that Mr Ram­bal­ly's res­ig­na­tion was a fi­nal step in sep­a­rat­ing the Ma­ha Sab­ha from the UNC. I say fi­nal step since I note that as far back as 2023, the Ma­ha Sab­ha had been dis­tanc­ing it­self from the UNC, when it banned one sit­ting UNC Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (Bar­ry Padarath) from its ra­dio and tele­vi­sion ..."