November 28 is more than the date for the Local Government elections for one candidate, it’s the anniversary of the death of her father, former government minister Dhanraj Singh.
One generation later Singh’s daughter, Sharda Singh, is in the political arena, not with the same party he supported, the United National Congress (UNC), but optimistic that what she is doing “will make dad proud.”
Singh was a colourful politician in the Basdeo Panday government. Singh died at the age of 49 in 2008. Sharda was then 17. Ten years later his daughter is the People’s National Movement candidate for Montrose in the Chaguanas Borough.
“I saw what politics did to my father but he always wanted to help people that is why he got involved. He cared about people, he was very trusting. He was the best man I ever met. I want to follow in his footsteps. I want to help the grassroots just like he did,” Singh told the T&T Guardian, during a walkabout in Chaguanas on Monday.
She admitted that she was “disillusioned” by what she saw happened with her father and how he was treated by the UNC. It was for that reason she said when she decided to enter politics she knew it could not be with the UNC.
“I chose the PNM because they are stable, they welcomed me, they believe in me, they see my passion.”
But she does not intend to let that faith that the party has put in her and which she has put in them blind her to the reality of what can happen in politics.
“I saw the good and bad in my father’s career, I intend to stay true to who I am. I will not let anybody sway me.”
As Singh walked her style of wooing voters was similar to her deceased father. She had a broad smile on her face and warmly greeted the people she met as though they were old friends. “How you going aunty” she asked a lady sitting in a small fruit shed. She addressed each person as “aunty” or “uncle” and left each one with a warm hug and smile and a promise that she will do whatever she can to address their concerns.
Singh is petite but extremely energetic. On Monday, at a walkabout in Endeavour, she visited every shop, every food place, every resident on the main road and off the side streets as she introduced herself and solicited their support.
“I am Sharda Singh the candidate for this area, I want you to support me on November 28.”
At one house a lady wearing a UNC t-shirt looked up from tending to her young daughter to respond to Singh who was seeking permission to enter her property.
Singh introduced herself and told her “I came to seek your support on November 28 but you look like you choose your side already.” The lady told her no, and was willing to listen as Singh wooed her to vote for the PNM.
As she spoke, an elderly man came down the stairs, Singh said “Uncle, I am Sharda Singh and I want you to vote for me on November 28.”
The man responded “zero, zero, zero, ent that’s what the Minister say,” Singh laughed as she responded so you would not vote for me?” Singh handed him a melongene plant which she gave to residents as she walked on Monday, he said “you know it had a man who used to give out potatoes to get people to vote for him.”
She said that her gift of a plant was because she loved to cook and she felt having your own garden was best “so anything you feel to eat you could pick and cook.”
The man eventually told her that he will “support her.”
As she walked she got a first-hand look at some of the problems in the community located just behind Price Plaza. Mounds of garbage piled up along roadsides mere metres away from eating places, drains which appeared not to have been cleaned for months the stench of dirty water and garbage combined making residents sick and to compound their problems broken sidewalks which make walking along the busy roadside a daily hazard.
Asked how she intended to address the many problems which she had heard and saw first-hand, Singh told the T&T Guardian she had compiled reports from every area which she has walked in since the campaign started. Those reports, she said go to the co-ordinator for the PNM’s Chaguanas campaign Trade Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon.
November 28, she said, was her opportunity to “let my father’s legacy live on, with every death comes life, I am doing this in his honour.”