For­mer Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly says he washed his hands of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) well be­fore he ap­peared at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment po­lit­i­cal meet­ing.

Ram­bal­ly sat next to Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein at the PNM meet­ing in San­gre Grande on Thurs­day.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ram­bal­ly said he sees Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and his team as sym­bols of sta­bil­i­ty and na­tion­al com­mit­ment.

“I was con­vinced that he (Young) is some­body to lead us for­ward. There are a lot of is­sues that we can point to that went by over the past cou­ple of years, my­self even be­ing crit­i­cal of some of the is­sues. But the ques­tion that one has to ask now is who is go­ing to move the coun­try for­ward,” Ram­bal­ly said.

Ram­bal­ly said he re­signed from the UNC over a month ago. The move came af­ter he with­drew his in­ter­est as a Ch­agua­nas West can­di­date in Feb­ru­ary. He was the MP for the last five years.

He said as an or­di­nary cit­i­zen, he had been eval­u­at­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties through the me­dia. Want­i­ng to ex­pe­ri­ence it first-hand, he at­tend­ed the PNM’s meet­ing.

In March, Ram­bal­ly’s wife at­tend­ed the PNM’s launch of its elec­tion cam­paign in Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain.

Along­side oth­er for­mer UNC mem­bers crit­i­cal of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship, Ram­bal­ly said he was im­pressed by PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s men­tor­ing of young politi­cians.

“I would sim­ply say that I don’t see that the UNC aligns with a good gov­er­nance mod­el to take the coun­try for­ward and there­fore I part­ed ways with the UNC on that alone.”

As for Thurs­day’s re­cep­tion, Ram­bal­ly said PNM sup­port­ers greet­ed him warm­ly, ush­er­ing him to the front be­fore Gov­ern­ment mem­bers em­braced him. He said he had a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to sup­port any par­ty or ex­press his views, which should be wel­comed in a democ­ra­cy. On whether his ap­pear­ance was a one-off, he hint­ed at fu­ture in­volve­ment in na­tion­al ser­vice.

Anil: Good rid­dance to Ju­das

“Good rid­dance to the last Ju­das - get ready to join the PNM in op­po­si­tion!”

That was the dis­missal from UNC front­lin­er Anil Roberts in Moru­ga Thurs­day night, to the news that Ram­bal­ly was at the PNM event.

Roberts told sup­port­ers, “We are all unit­ed now un­der the leader but for the last two years and eight months, there were peo­ple ‘in­side’ who were claim­ing to be Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­bers - Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment who were ac­tive­ly try­ing to mash up the UNC! Try­ing to bring down our leader! They pre­tend­ed they were UNC. And now I see a pic­ture - the last Ju­das has gone to the Red team!”

He added, “Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly is in a PNM meet­ing right now. I say to all of them: good rid­dance! Good­bye and off to the PNM in op­po­si­tion, as Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who fed you and who purged you, shall be the next prime min­is­ter with all of the coun­try sup­port­ing her!”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad yes­ter­day said Ram­bal­ly’s ap­pear­ance on the PNM plat­form was un­sur­pris­ing, giv­en his dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the UNC. She not­ed this wasn’t the first time the PNM at­tract­ed Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) sup­port. Still, she doubt­ed it would shift the Hin­du vote, main­tain­ing the UNC holds the ma­jor­i­ty in that de­mo­graph­ic.

Out­go­ing Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne de­scribed re­cent shifts by UNC mem­bers as “in­ter­est­ing.”

“In my per­son­al opin­ion, that is a good thing. It means that you’ve re­flect­ed. ... And that this idea that par­ty pol­i­tics means that you are in one space for life, I think is an old and an­ti­quat­ed idea.”

- With re­port­ing by Gail Alexan­der