There is a UNC, PNM stand­off in the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SGRC) re­gard­ing UNC coun­cil­lor Anil Ma­haraj who was charged by po­lice last week.

The five PNM coun­cil­lors in the UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tion want Ma­haraj to im­me­di­ate­ly re­sign as Cu­mu­to/Tamana coun­cil­lor af­ter he on­ly re­signed as chair­man of SGRC’s Fi­nance, Plan­ning and Al­lo­ca­tion of Re­sources (FPAR) com­mit­tee on Mon­day.

But the UNC is firm that Ma­haraj’s res­ig­na­tion from the com­mit­tee is all that will oc­cur. “PNM needs to look at its own busi­ness,” UNC’s pub­lic re­la­tions of­fcer Kirk Meighoo de­clared.

Ma­haraj is one of sev­en UNC coun­cil­lors in SGRC.

He was charged last week with one count of al­leged mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. He ap­peared last week be­fore a vir­tu­al court and plead­ed not guilty to an al­le­ga­tion that be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 to June 20, 2021 he de­mand­ed $15,000 from a con­trac­tor at the cor­po­ra­tion.

PNM coun­cil­lors im­me­di­ate­ly called for Ma­haraj’s res­ig­na­tion as coun­cil­lor and from the post of FPAR chair­man. They warned of hold­ing three no-con­fi­dence mo­tions against Ma­haraj con­cern­ing both posts.

On Mon­day, at the cor­po­ra­tion’s month­ly Fi­nance Meet­ing, Ma­haraj re­signed from the FPAR com­mit­tee–but didn’t quit as coun­cil­lor.

Meighoo, via UNC state­ment, in­di­cat­ed Ma­haraj in­tends to ro­bust­ly de­fend him­self against the al­le­ga­tions and vin­di­cate his name and rep­u­ta­tion.

“How­ev­er, in or­der to pre­serve the pub­lic con­fi­dence in the com­mit­tee, which he has served du­ti­ful­ly, he con­sid­ers this course of ac­tion (re­sign­ing as com­mit­tee head) to be most pru­dent. Coun­cil­lor Ma­haraj re­mains com­mit­ted to his burgess­es and the SGRC,”

But yes­ter­day PNM coun­cil­lor Si­mone Gill-Joseph told Guardian Me­dia Ltd: “That res­ig­na­tion as a Com­mit­tee Chair­man is sim­ply not good enough.”

She added: “It’s not by virtue of com­mit­tee chair­man­ship that he’s a pub­lic of­fi­cer. He has been charged for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, and that pub­lic of­fice is that of coun­cil­lor on the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

“We stand firm in our re­solve coun­cil­lor Ma­haraj must re­sign as Cu­mu­to Tamana rep­re­sen­ta­tive with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. If he re­fus­es to do the right thing, we ex­pect the lead­er­ship of his par­ty and the chair­man of the SGRC to de­mand his res­ig­na­tion. We’re not pre­pared to tol­er­ate any­thing oth­er­wise.”

”A choice must be made by the UNC: the peo­ple or coun­cil­lor Ma­haraj. We ex­pect his com­plete res­ig­na­tion or re­moval be­fore the end of (yes­ter­day). We’re mon­i­tor­ing this close­ly,’’

Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Anil Juter­am was un­avail­able . Meighoo re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia Ltd queries on PNM’s lat­est call:

“ Coun­cil­lor Ma­haraj has done the ho­n­ourable thing in a man­ner in which PNM mem­bers nev­er have. Rather than med­dling in UNC’s in­ter­nal af­fairs, PNM needs to ex­am­ine their even big­ger mess­es and ‘cov­er-up’ pol­i­cy. We have no need of ad­vice from them.’’