Hinds: UNC trying to make PNM look bad

JUNIOR NATIONAL Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds claimed yesterday he was approached by Couva South MP Kelvin Ramnath shortly after the tearoom brawl between Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley and Fyzabad MP Chandresh Sharma. He claimed Ramnath told him the “UNC had already won the battle,” and that the Opposition party was on a campaign to make the People’s National Movement (PNM) “look bad” so they could never regain power. He said Ramnath told him “once we have gotten the headline in the Express, Guardian and Newsday, that was enough.” “UNC will be exposed for what they really are,” the Laventille East/Morvant MP declared yesterday when he addressed a Diego Martin West constituency conference at the Point Cumana Community Centre.

Referring to an exclusive Newsday report on alleged approaches made to PNM senior members and Rowley to drop the matter of the tearoom brawl, which is currently before Parliament’s Privileges Committee. Hinds said he could verify that it actually happened, even though the UNC was trying to deny it. Hinds described Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley as an honest and upright man and he was shocked and disturbed when the tearoom brawl and Landate scandals broke. He said he was confident “good would prevail over evil.” Reiterating his point that the UNC was on a witch-hunt, Hinds said the PNM’s position is “no compromise, no surrender. We ask no quarter, we give none.”