Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Kel­ly Vil­lage/War­renville coun­cil­lor, Samuel Sankar, has sig­naled his in­ten­tion to cross the po­lit­i­cal floor, leav­ing the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Con­gress (UNC) for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM.)

Sankar was ac­knowl­edged at a PNM meet­ing at Sig­na­ture Hall in Ch­agua­nas. He lat­er told Guardian Me­dia he had not com­plet­ed the process of leav­ing the UNC but that he in­tend­ed to do so.

He was seen greet­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley af­ter the meet­ing, shak­ing his hand and telling him “I am home.”

Ear­li­er in the evening, Sankar sat in the front row of the au­di­to­ri­um as his pres­ence was an­nounced by PNM Sen­a­tor Renu­ka San­gram­s­ingh, to loud cheers from PNM sup­port­ers.

On Au­gust 9, Sankar de­fied an or­der from UNC leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her par­ty’s coun­cilors to stay away from a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form con­sul­ta­tion.

A day lat­er, he told Guardian Me­dia he had re­ceived death threats and had made a re­port to po­lice.

At that time, he de­nied claims he was plan­ning to cross the floor.

Sankar’s move comes with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions on the hori­zon, con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due be­tween De­cem­ber 2022 and March 2023.