Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Freeport/Chick­land coun­cil­lor Anil Bali­ram is hold­ing on but still crit­i­cal and re­mains sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly and friends who are of­fer­ing con­tin­u­ous prayers for his re­cov­ery.

Bali­ram has been ward­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s In­ten­sive Care Unit since he was rushed to the hos­pi­tal on Sun­day fol­low­ing a sus­pect­ed at­tempt to take his life at his Cou­va home. The sit­u­a­tion was de­scribed yes­ter­day as “still del­i­cate.”

Yes­ter­day, Bali­ram was vis­it­ed by his wife, sib­lings, moth­er-in-law and his pun­dit. Al­so at the hos­pi­tal were Cou­va Tabaquite Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad, vice chair­man Hen­ry Awong, sev­er­al coun­cil­lors and Ca­roni Cen­tral con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials.

Ca­roni Cen­tral MP David Lee said Bali­ram was re­ceiv­ing the best care pos­si­ble.

Lee added, “I’ve spo­ken to Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe on the sit­u­a­tion and he’s in con­stant touch on what is go­ing on. Anil and his fam­i­ly re­main in the prayers of my­self and the en­tire par­ty.

“His burgess­es are deeply sad. He’s al­ways been very down-to-earth, al­ways fight­ing for them, and they want to fight for him with their prayers.”

Lee said an in­ter­faith ser­vice will be held for Bali­ram at 11 am to­day at Ca­roni Cen­tral’s con­stituen­cy of­fice.

CTT chair­man Ram­per­sad said the cor­po­ra­tion will al­so have an in­ter­faith ser­vice for Bali­ram at 9.30 am to­mor­row, pri­or to its statu­to­ry meet­ing.

Mean­while, for­mer Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray ex­pressed sad­ness at the news on Bali­ram.

Paray said, “My thoughts and prayers are with Anil, his fam­i­ly, col­leagues and the wider lo­cal gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ty, pray­ing for his speedy and full re­cov­ery. I’ve known him for many years as a ded­i­cat­ed ser­vant of the peo­ple. He’s served his com­mu­ni­ty with com­mit­ment, hu­mil­i­ty and a clear sense of du­ty.”

Paray added, “This mo­ment should re­mind all of us that be­hind every pub­lic ti­tle is a hu­man be­ing. Elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives and pub­lic of­fi­cials are ex­pect­ed to be strong at all times, but they too feel pain, pres­sure and ex­haus­tion. We must show com­pas­sion, es­pe­cial­ly in dif­fi­cult mo­ments.”

CTT vice chair­man Hen­ry Awong, who was al­so on Paray’s UP slate for UNC’s elec­tion, told Guardian Me­dia he and Bali­ram are close friends.

Awong added, “I’m deeply con­cerned. But he looked good to­day com­pared to Sun­day. We’re pray­ing hard - we ask the na­tion to pray for him al­so.”