For­mer Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir has bro­ken his si­lence fol­low­ing a jab from UNC Tabaquite can­di­date Sean Sobers, who de­scribed Rag­bir as hav­ing “passed through like a va­grant.”

In a sharply word­ed state­ment ti­tled Some Things Nev­er Change, Rag­bir said the re­marks were a painful re­minder of why he left the UNC. He ac­cused the par­ty of be­ing more fo­cused on im­press­ing what he called a "fail­ing cult leader" than on pub­lic ser­vice.

Rag­bir said he did not en­ter pol­i­tics to “chant slo­gans or cur­ry favour,” but to serve. “I’ve treat­ed thou­sands of pa­tients, stood with con­stituents dur­ing floods, health crises, and loss,” he said. “That’s not ‘pass­ing through’ that’s show­ing up.”

He added that if stand­ing on prin­ci­ple made him a po­lit­i­cal out­cast, “so be it.” He would rather be called a va­grant by Sobers than be­come an­oth­er “yes man clap­ping on cue while the UNC con­tin­ues to de­scend in­to chaos.”

Rag­bir had pub­licly chal­lenged par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing his tenure and vot­ed against the Op­po­si­tion on a key par­lia­men­tary mo­tion.

His de­fence came af­ter for­mer Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray al­so con­demned the re­marks, call­ing them “be­neath the dig­ni­ty of po­lit­i­cal de­bate.”

Rag­bir urged younger vot­ers to re­ject blind loy­al­ty. “Al­ways choose ser­vice over syco­phancy,” he said. “Stand for some­thing. Don’t just stand in line be­hind some­one.”