The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is ready­ing it­self to take con­trol of the Ch­agua­nas East con­stituen­cy and has promised not to hold back on ef­forts to in­crease the par­ty’s sup­port base in that area.

Ex­press­ing con­fi­dence in the par­ty ex­pand­ing its vis­i­bil­i­ty through the se­lect­ed can­di­date in Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day said he was sat­is­fied they would be suc­cess­ful in the ef­fort.

Re­spond­ing to brief ques­tions as he for­mal­ly opened the PNM’s newest con­stituen­cy of­fice at Lendore Vil­lage, En­ter­prise, Row­ley con­firmed Ramb­harat had been suc­cess­ful­ly screened and would be lead­ing the par­ty’s out­reach in Cen­tral.

Paint­ed in the PNM’s sig­na­ture colour, the spank­ing new premis­es at the cor­ner of Chrissie Ter­race and South­ern Main Road al­so dou­bled as the site of the PNM’s gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing, which is usu­al­ly held at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, month­ly.

Al­though yes­ter­day’s gath­er­ing in­clud­ed top mem­bers of the Cab­i­net, no­tably ab­sent was em­bat­tled Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald.

The Ch­agua­nas East seat is cur­rent­ly held by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Fazal Karim.

De­liv­er­ing brief re­marks min­utes af­ter the cer­e­mo­ni­al rib­bon cut­ting, Row­ley said his­to­ry was cre­at­ed, as it was the first time the PNM had es­tab­lished a home in the Cen­tral dis­trict and that the gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing had been held out­side the par­ty’s head­quar­ters.

“We are strength­en­ing our po­si­tion here and we in­tend to be here for a very very long time as we in­tend to be in T&T for a very long time,” Row­ley said.

Con­firm­ing the par­ty had em­barked on an ex­pan­sion ex­er­cise to grow its op­er­a­tional base, the PM added: “We are still proud of our record that we have con­test­ed every elec­tion, every seat, in every part of T&T be­cause we are tru­ly a na­tion­al par­ty.”

En­dors­ing Ramb­harat as the PNM’s “stan­dard-bear­er in Ch­agua­nas East,” Row­ley said he was con­fi­dent Ramb­harat could han­dle both the min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio and this lat­est out­reach ef­fort.

Of­fer­ing a quick in­sight in­to how he in­tend­ed to at­tract new mem­bers in Ch­agua­nas East, Ramb­harat of­fered: “I have been here be­fore when I worked with the PNM in Ch­agua­nas and now I am back here. I am very fa­mil­iar with the area and we have work to do.

“This is a beau­ti­ful com­mu­ni­ty and the PNM wants to grow fur­ther in Cen­tral Trinidad.”

In­di­cat­ing he had the sup­port of long-stand­ing PNM mem­bers and a top ex­ec­u­tive team sup­port­ing him, Ramb­harat said: “The PNM has been con­tribut­ing via Cen­tral Trinidad and the ef­fort now is to grow and strength­en our­selves in this part of the coun­try.”

Pressed to say how the PNM in­tend­ed to get a foothold in the seat tra­di­tion­al­ly held by the UNC, Ramb­harat replied: “There were a lot of places in this coun­try that the PNM had not been strong, but the PNM has grown stronger and we will grow stronger in Cen­tral Trinidad.

“Sup­port is there, we have al­ways had sup­port here. We have been here on the ground for a few months now es­pe­cial­ly get­ting our head­quar­ters ready and we know there is sup­port. We know there is tremen­dous love for the PNM and we in­tend to har­ness that sup­port.”