Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has sent prayers and re­cov­ery wish­es to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Freeport/Chick­land coun­cil­lor Anil Bali­ram, who re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Bali­ram has been ward­ed since last Sun­day fol­low­ing a sus­pect­ed sui­cide at­tempt. Fol­low­ing an in­ci­dent at his home, Bali­ram was rushed to hos­pi­tal and has been on life-sup­port since.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Bali­ram’s wife said lit­tle about his con­di­tion, in­clud­ing whether he was show­ing any re­sponse to stim­uli. Oth­ers con­firmed Bali­ram re­mained un­re­spon­sive, with his con­di­tion un­changed since Sun­day. The prog­no­sis was de­scribed as “grim” and “sad.”

The Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, where Bali­ram has served as a coun­cil­lor since 2010, held an in­ter­faith ser­vice for him yes­ter­day.

PNM chair­man Gon­za­les said: “I re­main deeply sad­dened to learn of coun­cil­lor Bali­ram’s pre­car­i­ous med­ical con­di­tion. In mo­ments like these, pol­i­tics must give way to hu­man­i­ty and ci­vil­i­ty.

“To­day, our col­lec­tive thoughts and prayers are with him, his fam­i­ly, burgess­es and loved ones as he fights through this dif­fi­cult time. I pray that God grants him strength, heal­ing and a full and speedy re­cov­ery. May faith, love and the sup­port of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty car­ry him through.”

Yes­ter­day, Siparia al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts, who shift­ed al­le­giance from the UNC to the PNM and against whom Siparia UNC mem­bers protest­ed yes­ter­day, said he had known Bali­ram since 2020. Roberts said he in­tend­ed to vis­it him in hos­pi­tal to­day.

Roberts said he and Bali­ram had sup­port­ed for­mer Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray and his Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots team in 2024. The UP un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the UNC’s ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions that year, los­ing to UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Stars slate.

Roberts added: “We took a po­si­tion on trans­paren­cy, democ­ra­cy and in­tegri­ty in the par­ty and, in our con­ver­sa­tions, he al­ways en­cour­aged me to stand up for what is right. I was tak­en aback when I heard what hap­pened to him last Sun­day. He had been un­der po­lit­i­cal pres­sure from cer­tain UNC quar­ters. How­ev­er, I al­so know that serv­ing the peo­ple and do­ing his job for them were among his great­est joys.”

Ca­roni Cen­tral MP David Lee and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath did not re­spond yes­ter­day to so­cial me­dia re­ports claim­ing Bali­ram was side­lined by the UNC and suf­fered “im­mense pres­sure from the par­ty’s up­per-lev­el hi­er­ar­chy.”

Ac­tivist Ayan­da Thomas, who post­ed claims about Bali­ram be­ing side­lined, said: “No one who has giv­en so much to a po­lit­i­cal par­ty should be treat­ed with hos­til­i­ty or vic­tim­i­sa­tion be­cause they sup­port­ed a dif­fer­ent slate in an in­ter­nal de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process.”

She claimed Bali­ram suf­fered emo­tion­al and men­tal stress from be­ing “black­list­ed.” Af­ter the UNC won the gen­er­al elec­tion, Bali­ram was not, up to yes­ter­day, among UNC coun­cil­lors who had re­ceived state board ap­point­ments.