Pay­ing trib­ute to a man who bol­stered her dur­ing her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar wept at the fu­ner­al of Prem­c­hand Sookoo yes­ter­day, de­scrib­ing him as a role mod­el for all coun­cil­lors.

Ad­dress­ing hun­dreds who gath­ered at Ra­mai Trace, Debe, for Sookoo’s fu­ner­al, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­called how Sookoo men­tored her dur­ing her ear­ly po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, guid­ing her from a coun­cil­lor to the lead­er­ship of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress of which he was a found­ing mem­ber.

The 77-year-old, who ded­i­cat­ed 33 years of his life to pub­lic ser­vice, was cre­mat­ed at the Shore of Peace, Mos­qui­to Creek. He was re­gard­ed as the longest-serv­ing coun­cil­lor in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean serv­ing con­stituents from 1983 to 2016.

“Un­cle Doc was a guid­ing light in my po­lit­i­cal jour­ney. He was not just a politi­cian; he was a ser­vant of the peo­ple, al­ways pri­ori­tis­ing their needs above all else,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

MP for Oropouche East Dr Roodal Mooni­lal al­so re­called Sookoo’s men­tor­ship in his own life. As a mark of re­spect, Mooni­lal an­nounced that Sookoo would be posthu­mous­ly recog­nised as the reign­ing cam­paign man­ag­er for the Oropouche East seat, a tes­ta­ment to his en­dur­ing in­flu­ence. Mooni­lal high­light­ed Sookoo’s decades-long com­mit­ment to the UNC, re­call­ing how he served the par­ty since its in­cep­tion and re­mained a trust­ed ad­vi­sor in both po­lit­i­cal and per­son­al mat­ters.

“Doc’s un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to our par­ty and his tire­less ef­forts in up­lift­ing his com­mu­ni­ty will nev­er be for­got­ten,” Mooni­lal said, not­ing that Sookoo was award­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it (Gold) in 2010 for his com­mu­ni­ty work. Just last year, he was ho­n­oured for his 33 years of ser­vice to the UNC.

As mourn­ers filed past Sookoo’s cas­ket, gar­land­ing his body, many re­flect­ed on the im­pact he had on their lives.

Re­tired school­teacher Pa­tri­cia Jadoo­nanan re­called how Sookoo would of­ten send peo­ple to her home seek­ing rec­om­men­da­tion let­ters and oth­er as­sis­tance.

“He was al­ways con­cerned about the up­lift­ment of youths and treat­ed every­one with cour­tesy and re­spect,” she said.

Lystra Bel­larsario, the daugh­ter of one of Sookoo’s close friends, spoke of his abil­i­ty to in­spire con­fi­dence in the younger gen­er­a­tion.

“He was tru­ly the heart of Ra­mai Trace, and he made sure to care for all of us. Be­cause of him, I was al­ways con­fi­dent in my abil­i­ties,” she said.

Cur­rent coun­cil­lor Nicholas Kan­hai, who suc­ceed­ed Sookoo in 2016, cred­it­ed him with be­ing a con­stant source of mo­ti­va­tion.

“He had a way of de­fus­ing tense sit­u­a­tions with his hu­mour. He would call peo­ple ‘Be­ta’ and ‘Beti’ (son and daugh­ter in Hin­di) to re­mind them of the big­ger pic­ture—that we were all fam­i­ly,” Kan­hai re­called.

Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, re­called Sookoo’s strate­gic wit in meet­ings. “He would some­times pre­tend to call the po­lit­i­cal leader for ad­vice just to speed up dis­cus­sions in his favour. That was his way of keep­ing things mov­ing,” Ma­haraj said, draw­ing smiles from the crowd.

Sookoo died from a heart at­tack on Sun­day.