Gail Alexan­der

UNC coun­cil­lor Samuel Sankar ap­peared to be the on­ly mem­ber of the Op­po­si­tion at­tend­ing yes­ter­day’s 60th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her MPs were not present, of­fi­cials in­di­cat­ed, as has been cus­tom­ary dur­ing their tenure in Op­po­si­tion. How­ev­er, Sankar who is from the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) was seen at the QPS cel­e­bra­tions and oth­er state func­tions.

Kel­ly Vil­lage/War­renville coun­cil­lor Sankar, who is al­so at­tached to the TPRC, was al­so re­cent­ly spot­light­ed af­ter he at­tend­ed the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry’s con­sul­ta­tion with cor­po­ra­tions on the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment bill.

At a UNC meet­ing the night be­fore the con­sul­ta­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar or­dered of­fi­cials of the sev­en UNC-held cor­po­ra­tions to boy­cott the con­sul­ta­tions. Sankar had said coun­cil­lors were told to at­tend the con­sul­ta­tion and protest and he was un­aware of the boy­cott call which came at the meet­ing’s end.

He suf­fered threats which he re­port­ed to the po­lice but stood by his po­si­tion. He was sup­port­ed by Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray and oth­ers. Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly said he’d ex­plained his sit­u­a­tion and the mat­ter was a “non-is­sue.”

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian hours af­ter at­tend­ing the event yes­ter­day, Sankar said, “I was in­vit­ed to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah event and I ac­cept­ed. It is our na­tion’s Di­a­mond Ju­bilee—60th-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion and we’re all proud cit­i­zens of this great coun­try. My col­leagues from the TPRC at­tend­ed as well as some of my burgess­es—like Lieu­tenant She­ri­on Man­swell—who are in the mil­i­tary and par­tic­i­pat­ed.

“I al­so at­tend­ed func­tions held by the Fire and Pris­ons Ser­vices and the Pres­i­dent’s ‘Toast to the Na­tion’ event at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts.”

Sankar said the week of “fire” he re­ceived af­ter his at­ten­dance at the LG con­sul­ta­tion had sub­sided and some UNC coun­cil­lors were again speak­ing to him “dis­creet­ly.”

“Many peo­ple are pray­ing for me. A good col­league told me to stand up like Daniel in the li­on’s den ...,” he said.

UNC par­ty of­fi­cials yes­ter­day didn’t re­spond to queries on the Op­po­si­tion’s no-show at the QPS func­tion, where Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was greet­ed with loud ap­plause.

UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal said he wasn’t in T&T.

MP Rudy In­dars­ingh al­so said he wasn’t in T&T, as his daugh­ter was ac­cept­ed to a uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da and he was there help­ing her set­tle in. UNC deputy leader David Lee and UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo didn’t re­ply.

Yes­ter­day’s was the first “In­de­pen­dence free-up” in two years, since COVID re­stric­tions had “locked down” T&T in 2020 and last year.

Apart from of­fi­cial an­niver­sary func­tions by var­i­ous agen­cies, there was a huge gath­er­ing of peo­ple—clad in In­de­pen­dence red- in­clud­ing chil­dren, along Tra­garete Road, Port-of-Spain, from ear­ly.

They watched the pa­rade of mil­i­tary units and “zessed” to the mu­sic bands parad­ing from the QP Sa­van­nah to the St James bar­racks.

There was a Car­ni­val-like at­mos­phere, in­clud­ing with peo­ple lim­ing in the ar­eas be­tween Cipri­ani Boule­vard to French Street all day—some se­cur­ing ear­ly park­ing for last night’s fire­works event.

In down­town PoS, a num­ber of dri­vers on the PoS-San Fer­nan­do route sport­ed In­de­pen­dence red jer­seys.

How­ev­er, on so­cial me­dia, some peo­ple cir­cu­lat­ed a 60th In­de­pen­dence greet­ing meme with the “O” in “6O” por­trayed as a pot­hole.

Pri­or to last night’s fire­works event at the QPS—at a launch site oblique­ly op­po­site Pres­i­dent’s House—of­fi­cials of the near­by Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo were re­it­er­at­ing their hope that next year’s In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions are not held in such close prox­im­i­ty to the zoo. They ex­pressed the hope that the fire­works bill be­ing con­tem­plat­ed by Gov­ern­ment is passed by then and en­sures that fire­works dis­plays be at least 0.5 miles away from zoos, hos­pi­tals, nat­ur­al re­sources, parks and homes for the el­der­ly.