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Vasant bharath wife

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Vasant hits back: ‘I’m proud of how hard my family worked’

Kamla Persad Bissessar’s lone challenger for the post of Political Leader in the United National Congress’ (UNC) internal election, Vasant Bharath has condemned her for calling him a ‘knife and fork Indian’. 

Speaking at his own meeting on Wednesday night, Bharath said his family worked just as hard as any other to be able to achieve as much as they did. 

“I’m a grandchild of indentureship and my parents worked hard, very hard like many others to secure a better quality of life for their children. My father became a professional, not because he was entitled, but because he worked hard. He became a dental surgeon and he served the people of St Augustine as the duly elected representative in 1966. 

“My mother was a housewife who collected empty bottles get the refund of five cents on each bottle to support my father through his studies and put food on the table for us,” he recalled. 

He doubled down on his condemnation calling the term ‘knife and fork Indian’ and insu

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Bharath returns to the UNC

Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath has seem­ing­ly put aside his dif­fer­ences with the UNC and its po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and is once again try­ing to take an ac­tive role in the par­ty.

Bharath fell out of favour with the par­ty af­ter he chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the po­lit­i­cal leader po­si­tion in 2020 in a bit­ter, and bru­tal cam­paign. He re­peat­ed­ly called the in­ter­nal elec­tion process a “sham” and de­clined to con­test any oth­er elec­tion since, in­clud­ing last month’s in­ter­nal poll.

How­ev­er, on Fri­day night he post­ed a state­ment to his Face­book page say­ing he was ready to work with the par­ty again.

“My past dif­fer­ences with the UNC lead­er­ship pale in com­par­i­son to the per­va­sive is­sues that plague the coun­try un­der the in­com­pe­tent and cor­rupt hands of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment,” he said, adding that Per­sad-Bisses­sar demon­strat­ed “ul­ti­mate lead­er­ship” by set­ting aside

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Bharath a true stalwart

Letters to the Editor Newsday

THE EDITOR: In a recent letter, Rajiv Hemant said the UNC has no fresh face to offer but stale bread because Vasant Bharath was invited back to join the UNC.

If that was a fact, Kamla Persad-Bissessar would not have invited him to “join hands to rebuild” the nation together. He is an astute jurist who has integrity and knowledge and a career in both law and politics. Th UNC leader's decision is not a fallacy or a misconception, it is admirable.

Nor is this a surprise to us. Remember Jack Warner's and Persad-Bissessar's separation? Warner had nothing pleasant to say about her. However, he has been welcomed back home.

I believe that Bharath's academic qualifications as a qualified economist, a graduate of the University of the West Indies and a man who has worked immensely with Persad-Bissessar in the past as a former minister of trade and industry makes him a stalwart.

Nonetheless, I think politicians make strange bedfellows and, furthermore, to quote the late Basdeo Panday, “politics has its own morality.” I

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