Out­go­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Cu­mu­to/ Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir has back­hand­ed UNC Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­date Sean Sobers’s de­scrip­tion of him as a “po­lit­i­cal va­grant”—and thanked Sobers for re­mind­ing him of why he left the Op­po­si­tion par­ty.

“If de­fend­ing my for­mer con­stituents and speak­ing truth to lead­er­ship makes me a po­lit­i­cal out­cast, so be it. I’d rather be called a ‘po­lit­i­cal va­grant’ by Sean Sobers than be an­oth­er ‘yes man’ clap­ping on cue while the UNC con­tin­ues to de­scend in­to chaos,” Rag­bir said yes­ter­day via a me­dia re­lease.

Rag­bir, who was la­belled a “dis­si­dent” af­ter chal­leng­ing the lead­er­ship of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, was re­spond­ing to Sobers’ in­sult­ing de­scrip­tion of him at last Sat­ur­day’s UNC meet­ing in Rio Claro. Rag­bir, who has since re­signed from the UNC, added, “I want to thank Mr Sean Sobers for re­mind­ing me—yet again—why I stepped away from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. The name-call­ing. The back­bit­ing. The des­per­ate need to im­press a fail­ing cult leader in­stead of serv­ing the peo­ple. It’s all still alive and well.

“And ap­par­ent­ly, if you stand on prin­ci­ple or dare to think in­de­pen­dent­ly, you’re no longer a com­rade—you’re a ‘va­grant.’”

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

“To those still fight­ing for in­ter­nal re­form and trans­paren­cy: keep go­ing. Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serves lead­ers, not blind loy­al­ists. We can’t fix the coun­try if we’re too busy try­ing to si­lence each oth­er.”

He urged the young peo­ple watch­ing on at the Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign to al­ways choose ser­vice over syco­phancy.

“Stand for some­thing. Don’t just stand in line be­hind some­one,” Rag­bir said.