The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has lost a “stal­wart” with the death of coun­cil­lor Vashti Shar­main Sookhoo at the age of 60.

Sookhoo, who rep­re­sent­ed the Re­form/Man­a­ham­bre elec­toral dis­trict in the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, was re­mem­bered yes­ter­day by po­lit­i­cal col­leagues as a ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vant who worked tire­less­ly on be­half of her com­mu­ni­ty.

The UNC, in ex­press­ing con­do­lences to Sookhoo’s fam­i­ly, friends, col­leagues, fel­low coun­cil­lors and oth­ers who worked with her, said she served her com­mu­ni­ty with ded­i­ca­tion and a com­mit­ment to res­i­dents, adding that her death was a loss to both the com­mu­ni­ty and the par­ty.

Na­pari­ma MP Dr Narindra Roop­nar­ine de­scribed Sookhoo as “a true stal­wart of Na­pari­ma and a ded­i­cat­ed ser­vant of the peo­ple of Re­form/Man­a­ham­bre.”

“It is with pro­found sad­ness and a heavy heart that I ex­tend my deep­est con­do­lences on the pass­ing of coun­cil­lor Vashti Sookhoo,” Roop­nar­ine said.

Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Khadi­jah Ameen al­so paid trib­ute to Sookhoo, re­call­ing that she had seen the coun­cil­lor just days be­fore her death.

Ameen said Sookhoo had in­vit­ed her on Sat­ur­day to a book dri­ve for more than 50 chil­dren at the Re­form Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

“She was her usu­al self. Busy as a bee. In the back­ground mak­ing sure things were in or­der. Greet­ing every child by name. Call­ing every­one doll and babe and son,” Ameen re­called.

She said Sookhoo in­tro­duced mem­bers of her team and high­light­ed their hard work.

“In my re­marks, I paid trib­ute to Vashti’s qui­et per­sis­tence and ded­i­ca­tion. Her con­sis­ten­cy,” Ameen said.

De­scrib­ing Sookhoo as “a true gem and a sol­dier to the end,” Ameen said her death would be par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult for her daugh­ter and two sons, who had re­cent­ly lost their fa­ther.

Sookhoo en­tered pol­i­tics at the age of 16 and went on to serve in sev­er­al ca­pac­i­ties with­in the UNC and her com­mu­ni­ty.

Her po­lit­i­cal in­volve­ment in­clud­ed serv­ing on the ex­ec­u­tive of the Na­pari­ma con­stituen­cy, as women’s af­fairs of­fi­cer and wel­fare of­fi­cer, as well as an al­der­man and coun­cil­lor.

Be­yond elec­toral pol­i­tics, Sookhoo was the founder of the non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion Friends of Re­form/Man­a­ham­bre.

She al­so served as sec­re­tary of the Williamsville Hin­du Tem­ple.