“No one cares!”

That was Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s dis­mis­sive re­sponse yes­ter­day, af­ter so-called dis­si­dent MP Dr Rai Rag­bir pulled out of the par­ty’s screen­ing for his Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la seat be­cause he could no longer as­so­ciate him­self with the par­ty un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship.

“I can no longer align my­self with a par­ty that has aban­doned its prin­ci­ples, re­wards medi­oc­rity, shields those ac­cused of wrong­do­ing, and pun­ish­es in­tegri­ty. I refuse to sub­mit my­self to a screen­ing com­mit­tee that in­cludes in­di­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly charged with wrong­do­ing, em­broiled in court cas­es in­volv­ing mis­man­age­ment of pub­lic funds at the EM­BD, al­leged­ly linked to gang ac­tiv­i­ty and even one in­di­vid­ual who has se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of hu­man traf­fick­ing to an­swer,” Rag­bir said in a state­ment.