Waving a list as hard evidence, UNC's deputy political leader Dr Roodal Moonilal suggested Jack Warner had been an undercover PNM supporter even while he was in Government and was Chaguanas West MP.Moonilal dropped the shocker, with a list from the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) to prove it, at the UNC's Monday Night Forum on Xavier Street, Orchards Gardens, Chaguanas West, where an intense by-election campaign is being waged.
He sought to explain what might be behind Warner's resignation of the seat and his decision to recontest it under his own newly-formed party, the Independent Liberal Party (ILP).Addressing a full schoolyard of UNC supporters at the Chaguanas Government Primary School, he asked: "What is being played out behind our backs? What is happening? We may have found out why.
"Because when he was MP for Chaguanas West, our evidence suggests he did more to help members of the PNM than he did to help members of the UNC."I promised I will bring it to you and I brought it. I have in my hand a list from the Housing Development Corporation. This is a list I got from the HDC. "All MPs could recommend persons for housing... all members, whether the PNM, the UNC, the COP."
Noting the recommendations were forwarded to the HDC for processing, Moonilal added:"I have a list from the HDC (showing) 342 persons recommended for housing by the former MP Jack Warner."Moonilal threw out a challenge: "Anybody who wants to check this, meet me in Felicity Wednesday morning ten o'clock. This is the official document.He said: "In this list, there are 21 persons from Chaguanas West. Twenty-one persons, out of 342. That is six per cent. You know how much people it has from Felicity?
"Three people from Felicity. That is one house a year."Moonilal claimed there were people who visited Warner at his office in the wee hours of the morning, at 1 am and 2 am, and added: "It wasn't Chaguanas West business. I don't know who business it was at that hour of the morning."Reading out the addresses of the people Warner recommended for housing, he said they were from the PNM's 12 seats.
"Mt Hope, San Juan, Laventille, Moruga, Santa Cruz, Sangre Grande, Diego Martin, Morvant, Point Fortin, Toco, Marabella, Trincity. We could go on and on, you will not see people from Chaguanas West."So when we thought he was representing the people of Chaguanas West, he was representing the 12 seats held by the PNM," he said.
Moonilal assured the constituents when UNC candidate Khadijah Ameen recommended people for housing (if she won the July 29 by-election) 100 per cent would be from Chaguanas West.Describing the Opposition's Avinash Singh as a "paper candidate," he said the PNM's real candidate was Warner.Moonilal added: "His objective is to divide this seat and to ensure the PNM or Jack Warner, one or the other, wins this seat.
"This seat has voted since 1950 for members of the Opposition or candidates that are not PNM."Why today, 2013, Jack Warner wants to take Chaguanas West to the PNM?"Moonilal said the ILP's campaign song, a rap performed by Warner himself–Moonilal Coonilal–shows the disrespect and historical prejudice East Indians had experienced.My name is Moonilal, a beautiful Hindi name, but they are making fun of that," he said.
Warner, contacted for a response to Moonilal's allegations, said: "I am not responding to anything until Friday night. All I could say is get a front seat."