Three for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have weighed in on Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship of Di­vali Na­gar, with Dr De­vant Ma­haraj crit­i­cis­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of State sup­port, Dr Bhoe Tewarie warn­ing against politi­cis­ing the fes­ti­val and Ra­mona Ram­di­al wel­com­ing greater pri­vate-sec­tor in­volve­ment.

Their com­ments fol­low Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism of the spon­sor­ship. Blue Wa­ters re­cent­ly in­creased its fi­nan­cial com­mit­ment to the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), be­com­ing a Di­a­mond Spon­sor of Di­vali Na­gar 2026, af­ter sev­er­al State-linked com­pa­nies with­drew their spon­sor­ship.

Ma­haraj, who served in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, said pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tions con­tin­ued to sup­port Di­vali Na­gar even when the event was used by the op­po­si­tion to crit­i­cise the Gov­ern­ment.

He said those ad­min­is­tra­tions dis­put­ed the amount of fund­ing but did not with­draw State sup­port. By con­trast, Ma­haraj said, State com­pa­nies had pulled out un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, leav­ing the event to seek al­ter­na­tive fund­ing.

Ma­haraj al­so al­leged that tele­vi­sion cov­er­age by state-owned TTT had dis­ap­peared. He ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of treat­ing Di­vali Na­gar as op­tion­al while find­ing fund­ing for oth­er in­ter­ests.

Tewarie, a for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Re­struc­tur­ing and Gen­der Af­fairs, urged peo­ple not to politi­cise Di­vali or Di­vali Na­gar.

“If you have a prob­lem with Blue Wa­ters and NCIC, I un­der­stand you have a prob­lem. But it is wrong, ab­solute­ly wrong, to politi­cise Di­vali Na­gar and bring dark­ness to the na­tion­al fes­ti­val of Di­vali led by Hin­dus,” he said in a com­ment post­ed on so­cial me­dia

Ram­di­al con­grat­u­lat­ed Blue Wa­ters on be­com­ing a ma­jor spon­sor and said more pri­vate-sec­tor par­tic­i­pa­tion was need­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­scribed the spon­sor­ship as iron­ic, cit­ing an in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion in which Blue Wa­ters own­er Do­minic Hadeed and his wife, Genevieve, were al­leged­ly re­ferred to us­ing a racial slur against East In­di­ans. The deroga­to­ry term was al­leged­ly used by Genevieve’s aunt, busi­ness­woman Star Sab­ga, dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween the two women.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so claimed NCIC pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo had been “duped” in­to host­ing a press con­fer­ence to an­nounce the com­pa­ny’s Di­a­mond Spon­sor­ship.

The con­tro­ver­sy fol­lows the de­ten­tion of the Hadeeds and Sab­ga dur­ing the re­cent State of Emer­gency (SoE). The Hadeeds were ar­rest­ed on June 24 un­der SoE reg­u­la­tions in con­nec­tion with an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. Sab­ga was de­tained the fol­low­ing day. The Hadeeds have de­nied the al­le­ga­tions and pre­vi­ous­ly said their de­ten­tion was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

The Hadeeds were re­leased on Ju­ly 23 af­ter their pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders were re­voked. Sab­ga was re­leased from de­ten­tion on Ju­ly 27 but placed un­der house ar­rest. Her de­ten­tion or­der was lat­er re­voked, and she was re­leased from house ar­rest on Sep­tem­ber 10, short­ly be­fore the SoE end­ed.