Renu­ka Singh

At­tor­ney for the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly is re­fut­ing spec­u­la­tion that he was se­lect­ed to con­test the Ch­agua­nas West seat as some sort of pay­back by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

On Sun­day, the par­ty an­nounced that Ram­bal­ly was se­lect­ed to re­place out­go­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and long­stand­ing UNC mem­ber Gan­ga Singh. “I have no hes­i­ta­tion in as­sur­ing the en­tire cit­i­zen­ry that their can­di­dates would be cho­sen on mer­it,” Ram­bal­ly said in re­sponse to ques­tions about his se­lec­tion. Just hours af­ter Ram­bal­ly, UNC in­sid­ers ques­tioned his se­lec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to those in­sid­ers, Ram­bal­ly’s se­lec­tion sig­nalled the deep ties be­tween the UNC and the SDMS. They say that Per­sad-Bisses­sar “owed” the SDMS be­cause her grand­son was hired as a teacher at an SDMS school on Mo­hess Road.

Ram­bal­ly dis­missed that the “naysay­ers ha­bit­u­al­ly ex­press neg­a­tive views,” He said he has been a lawyer for 19 years and al­so has a “ster­ling” record as a mem­ber of the In­dus­tri­al Court. Ram­bal­ly said he was urged to get in­to pol­i­tics. “I have been urged to get in­volved in the po­lit­i­cal are­na and I be­lieve now is the time. I would like to be­lieve that I was cho­sen be­cause of my track record and be­cause the ‘over 30-year-old’ par­ty be­lieves that I have a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence to of­fer to our coun­try at this time and par­tic­u­lar­ly, to the peo­ple of Ch­agua­nas West,” he said.

“In terms of Ch­agua­nas West, I was born there and grew up in the Con­stituen­cy. I am a son of the soil. An over­whelm­ing num­ber of UNC Par­ty Groups and ac­tivists sup­port­ed me in my bid to be the next UNC can­di­date,” he said. Whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s rel­a­tive was giv­en a job at an SDMS school, Ram­bal­ly he did not know the po­lit­i­cal lead­ers fam­i­ly, “let alone their pro­fes­sions.

“I must add that I will not be privy to such in­for­ma­tion as I am the le­gal ad­vis­er to the SDMS. I, there­fore, of­fer ad­vice and rep­re­sen­ta­tion in a le­gal ca­pac­i­ty. This does not mean that I am a mem­ber of the SDMS’ ex­ec­u­tive or that I am a part of any in­ter­view pan­el treat­ing with prospec­tive teach­ers,” he said.

He added the SDMS and UNC had sim­i­lar view of po­lit­i­cal mer­i­toc­ra­cy.