Richard Lord

"It mat­ters not which seat I fight." That's the re­sponse from Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) po­lit­i­cal leader Win­ston Dook­er­an in re­sponse to ques­tion on his fight­ing the Tu­na­puna seat for the UNC-led coali­tion. Par­ty sources said on Thurs­day that Dook­er­an was se­lect­ed to con­test the PNM-con­trolled Tu­na­puna seat in the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Dook­er­an was a for­mer MP for St Au­gus­tine, but was de­feat­ed by the in­cum­bent MP for the con­stituen­cy Vas­ant Bharath.

Bharath was not cho­sen for that seat and his sup­port­ers are de­mand­ing an­swers. Sources have said that COP deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har has been se­lect­ed to con­test the seat in a two-way bat­tle with the PNM. Sources say the con­stituents are plan­ning a ma­jor demon­stra­tion against the de­ci­sion.

Dook­er­an, who is to come up against the in­cum­bent MP for Tu­na­puna, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Es­ther Le Gen­dre, said the choice of seat did not mat­ter. He was asked if he was hap­py about fight­ing the Tu­na­puna seat, which is con­sid­ered to be mar­gin­al. "I don't see pol­i­tics in terms of seats...So the ques­tion of be­ing hap­py or not hap­py does not arise," the COP leader stressed.