Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Ma­ha Sab­ha Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is call­ing on Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley to make an un­equiv­o­cal and de­fin­i­tive con­dem­na­tion of To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly can­di­date Hilton Sandy's com­ment about a Cal­cut­ta ship com­ing to To­ba­go if the PNM were to lose the Jan­u­ary 21 elec­tion.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said Sandy's state­ment at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in To­ba­go last week was "di­vi­sive, racist and in­cen­di­ary." He said the Ma­ha Sab­ha was "deeply sad­dened but not sur­prised by the luke­warm re­sponse of Dr Row­ley, who dis­tanced him­self from the state­ment and in­di­cat­ed that Sandy mis­spoke."

He said it was iron­ic that while Row­ley was eat­ing dou­bles in Debe, at Mas­tana Ba­har and at Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­brat­ing In­di­ans, in Rox­bor­ough, by his si­lence, he was cen­sor­ing In­di­ans.

Ma­haraj said the Ma­ha Sab­ha found Row­ley's po­si­tion "con­fus­ing" be­cause of his re­cent at­tempts "to de­vi­ate from his past char­ac­ter and em­brace the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty as part of re-en­gi­neer­ing the PNM." He said Row­ley must say what his re­sponse would have been if a UNC can­di­date had said on the plat­form "that if the PNM should win the elec­tion, that a boat from the Con­go would ar­rive in Trinidad."

Row­ley, Ma­haraj said, must clear­ly ar­tic­u­late the PNM's pol­i­cy on dis­crim­i­na­tion, adding that Sandy should "step down from the (elec­tion) race as tan­gi­ble proof that the PNM has delinked its par­ty's phi­los­o­phy from dis­crim­i­na­tion against In­di­ans." Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er al­so joined the grow­ing list of peo­ple de­cry­ing Sandy's com­ment yes­ter­day, say­ing it was a sad day for pol­i­tics in T&T.

In a re­lease, Warn­er said there is no space or time for such di­vi­sive and racist re­marks in a di­verse, har­mo­nious so­ci­ety such as ours. "It is tru­ly a sad day in the pol­i­tics of this coun­try that those who would as­pire to be lead­ers of our mul­ti­cul­tur­al, mul­ti-eth­nic so­ci­ety could see the world around them through such jaun­diced and prej­u­diced eyes," Warn­er said. He said the peo­ple of To­ba­go had en­dured 12 years of Orville Lon­don's PNM with noth­ing to show for it.

"It is not a ship from Cal­cut­ta they fear, it is an­oth­er term of the PNM that they just don't want to see ever again," he said.