With less than two weeks to go be­fore the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the bat­tle for Ch­agua­nas East is heat­ing up as both ma­jor par­ties in­ten­si­fy cam­paign­ing in what is shap­ing up to be one of the most close­ly watched con­tests in Cen­tral Trinidad.

In­cum­bent MP Van­dana Mo­hit is seek­ing a sec­ond term un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ban­ner, while busi­ness­man Richie Sookhai is mak­ing his first bid for Par­lia­ment on a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) tick­et.

Mo­hit dis­missed the idea that Ch­agua­nas East is a mar­gin­al seat, say­ing the PNM’s in­creas­ing ac­tiv­i­ty sig­nals con­cern rather than strength.

“The PNM is get­ting wor­ried,” she said. “I am see­ing now that des­per­a­tion is kick­ing in. In 2020 they act­ed des­per­ate, and now they are again act­ing des­per­ate in Ch­agua­nas East. But we are fo­cused. For five years, I have been work­ing in this con­stituen­cy, and we have put down a lot of ground­work.”

She al­so took aim at the re­turn of for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to the cam­paign trail, claim­ing he’s now be­ing used to prop up vul­ner­a­ble can­di­dates.

“They have to de­pend on each oth­er in var­i­ous con­stituen­cies, es­pe­cial­ly the mar­gin­al ones,” Mo­hit said. “The for­mer PM is hold­ing their hands, hop­ing to get them over the line.”

She fur­ther ac­cused the PNM of rush­ing last-minute road works with­out prop­er con­sul­ta­tion.

“Paving and re­me­di­al works are be­ing car­ried out with­out the ap­proval of the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion,” she said. “Where is the fund­ing com­ing from? I’ve spent five years fight­ing to get ba­sic in­fra­struc­tur­al work done, and now sud­den­ly, things are mov­ing.”

Sookhai coun­tered that res­i­dents are ready for new rep­re­sen­ta­tion af­ter years of what he de­scribed as stag­na­tion un­der the UNC.

“I will win on April 28,” he said. “Peo­ple are dis­grun­tled with the lev­el of rep­re­sen­ta­tion they’ve had. For the past 15 years, the Op­po­si­tion held this seat and did noth­ing. Look at the drains, the ne­glect­ed grounds, and un­kempt play­grounds.”

He al­so ques­tioned how the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion was spend­ing its an­nu­al sub­ven­tion.

“They re­ceive $22 mil­lion for de­vel­op­men­tal projects, where is that mon­ey go­ing?” he asked.

Sookhai re­ject­ed claims of po­lit­i­cal tim­ing, say­ing in­fra­struc­ture up­grades had been steadi­ly de­liv­ered.

“The Min­istry of Works and Trans­port has been car­ry­ing out projects con­sis­tent­ly for the past five years,” he said.

Vot­ers in Ch­agua­nas East told Guardian Me­dia the con­test re­mains a two-horse race be­tween Mo­hit and Sookhai. Mi­nor par­ty can­di­dates, in­clud­ing the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front’s Afi­fa Mo­hammed and the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance’s Lt Cm­dr Nor­man Din­di­al, are ex­pect­ed to earn sin­gle-dig­it sup­port.