Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Rai Rag­bir yes­ter­day teased about join­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment as he be­gan his con­tri­bu­tion to the 2025 Bud­get de­bate.

As he rose, Rag­bir, who was back­benched by his par­ty af­ter he sup­port­ed the PNM in June dur­ing de­bate on the Whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion, said his con­tri­bu­tion was his penul­ti­mate one un­less Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says oth­er­wise.

“This might be my penul­ti­mate pre­sen­ta­tion, or de­pends on the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, I may have an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to have an­oth­er bud­get speech,” he said to the echoes of “Ooohs” and thump­ing of the desk by his fel­low back­bencher Rod­ney Charles.

Rag­bir, along with Charles, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Rush­ton Paray and Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, have all been side­lined by their par­ty af­ter chal­leng­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s slate in the in­ter­nal elec­tions in June.

Rag­bir con­tin­ued to stoke the fire by de­scrib­ing pre­vi­ous speak­er Dr Amery Browne’s con­tri­bu­tion as “di­vine­ly ed­i­fy­ing” and “fan­tas­tic.”

Rag­bir, who told Guardian Me­dia last month that he will not be seek­ing re-elec­tion, at least on a UNC tick­et, yes­ter­day paid trib­ute to his Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la con­stituents who elect­ed him to be their voice in the House.

Rag­bir said he was both a man of sci­ence and faith, adding there are many who are los­ing faith in politi­cians, some of whom have self­ish­ly put their own in­ter­est ahead of the in­ter­est of the peo­ple, which he will not do.

“One of the proud­est mo­ments of this house was my de­ci­sion to vote in favour of the whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion. I did so be­cause my con­stituents ex­pressed con­cerns to me that they want to re­port in­stances of cor­rup­tion but were afraid to do so for fear of reprisal.”

He said he was aware that he lost favour with some of his col­leagues but made no apolo­gies for do­ing his du­ty to his con­stituen­cy and coun­try.

“I have been for­sak­en and ba­si­cal­ly thrown away. If there are those pre­pared to stand idly by and ig­nore in­jus­tice, cor­rup­tion, abus­es, out of fear or own self­ish de­sires, then that is their de­ci­sion.”

Read­ing an ex­cerpt from the Book of Gala­tians 6:9, Rag­bir said there are those who are afraid of do­ing what is right be­cause the wicked will al­ways win, adding that the scrip­ture ad­mon­ish­es the be­liev­er not to get weary in do­ing what’s right.

He said the bud­get “looked fair” to him, as the Gov­ern­ment looked at what is hap­pen­ing in the world. —Jensen La Vende