Akash Sama­roo

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal ve­he­ment­ly de­fend­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s racial di­ver­si­ty. She al­so ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of on­ly pur­port­ing to be the cham­pi­ons of peo­ple of East In­di­an de­scent when in re­al­i­ty the PNM has more tal­ent amongst that eth­nic group.

Draped in In­di­an wear in the Up­per House yes­ter­day, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal took is­sue with a com­ment that was made the day pri­or by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jear­lean John.

John on Tues­day in­ferred that the PNM’s base sup­port will re­ject Stu­art Young as po­lit­i­cal leader be­cause he is seen as an “elite.”

Go­ing on the of­fen­sive Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said, “it seems that if you be­long to an­oth­er race, that is not the base of the PNM that you don’t have a chance to lead this par­ty.”

Re­fer­ring to the PNM’s re­cent­ly held Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said she is will­ing to break the con­fi­dence of that meet­ing to set the record straight.

“Who­ev­er their in­former should have pusur and told them is that our po­lit­i­cal leader re­mind­ed us that the PNM is a move­ment of all peo­ple for the peo­ple of T&T. So, he does not just mount a po­lit­i­cal plat­form and speak about uni­ty, our po­lit­i­cal leader in be­hind the closed doors of his home which is in­side Bal­isi­er House he will speak to us about the PNM hav­ing a place for every sin­gle cit­i­zen,” she de­clared in the Sen­ate.

Stand­ing next to Sen­a­tor Richie Sookhai Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal added, “I am a rep­re­sen­ta­tive that there is a place for east In­di­an Hin­du young women in the PNM. Sen­a­tor Richie Sookhai is an in­di­ca­tor that there is a place for bright young Hin­du men in the PNM. Avinash Singh, don’t talk about our bright boy Vyash Nand­lal.”

Sen­a­tor Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal ar­gued that the UNC pur­ports to be the “pre­mier East In­di­an par­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go” to ap­peal to their base sup­port.

How­ev­er, she said they seem to lack tal­ent in that eth­nic group.

“Every time there is the ab­sence of a sen­a­tor, poor Un­cle Tim (Gopeesingh) they have to call him back to come and rep­re­sent from re­tire­ment,” she said to the laugh­ter of her col­leagues.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said that is not a prob­lem for the PNM which has a wealth of tal­ent from peo­ple of In­do-Trinida­di­an de­scent.

“If to­day or to­mor­row I am to leave this of­fice for what­ev­er rea­son trust me when I say it have a hun­dred bright young In­di­an peo­ple lined up wait­ing to come and de­fend the PNM,” she loud­ly de­clared to tu­mul­tuous desk thump­ing.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal added that the PNM is al­so very clear about who its po­lit­i­cal leader is.

“For those who are ask­ing who our leader is, Dr the Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley, who will make sure every cit­i­zen is tak­en care of,” she said to the Op­po­si­tion bench which asked that ques­tion on Tues­day.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor David Nakhid re­spond­ed to Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal.

“Who cares if it’s an East In­di­an fol­low you, if it’s a Chi­nese, Por­tugese or Lebanese, who cares? If all of you all could make vac­u­ous con­tri­bu­tions like you all had, who cares?” Nakhid added.

Mean­while, UNC deputy leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal told Guardian Me­dia that Sen­a­tor Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal’s com­ments were child­ish.

“I find those ob­ser­va­tions very in­fan­tile in the con­text of the re­al prob­lems fac­ing this coun­try where peo­ple dressed in school uni­forms robbed a shop last evening, a po­lice of­fi­cer was gunned down. So I think those is­sues the la­dy sen­a­tor raised pale in com­par­i­son to the crime, job­less­ness, pover­ty and the col­lapse of health care,” he said.

Mooni­lal, how­ev­er, added that while the PNM boasts of di­ver­si­ty in the Up­per House, it’s an­oth­er sto­ry in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“By the same to­ken in the low­er elect­ed House the clos­est the PNM has to a Hin­du MP is Mr (Faris) Al-Rawi, they do not have a Hin­du mem­ber of the Low­er House,” he said.

He added the de­scrip­tion of Stu­art Young as an “elite” has to do with his at­ti­tude and not his race.

And Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC was a “na­tion­al par­ty”. She added, “Per­sons are se­lect­ed ac­cord­ing to com­pe­tence. It is not about race.”

But po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj ad­mon­ished both par­ties for con­tin­u­ing to per­pet­u­ate the race rhetoric.

“With the young Gen Z vot­ers, you need rep­re­sen­ta­tives who are pas­sion­ate and com­mit­ted to build­ing a fu­ture for T&T. Our po­lit­i­cal par­ties must evolve in their struc­ture to meet the needs of our so­ci­ety. This is not a ques­tion of In­di­an or African her­itage, this is a ques­tion of be­ing com­mit­ted and ca­pa­ble and hav­ing the pub­lic trust. That should be your mo­ti­va­tor. Not the po­lit­i­cal rhetoric of decades gone by,” he ar­gued.

The po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst said it is a shame that younger politi­cians are as­pir­ing to “pre-in­de­pen­dence po­lit­i­cal think­ing.”