PNM to address controversy involving Arima mayor

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is mov­ing to ad­dress the is­sue in­volv­ing Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj, which is cur­rent­ly be­ing ex­am­ined by se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials.

This was con­firmed yes­ter­day by PNM ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, fol­low­ing re­ports that Ma­haraj pur­chased tick­ets to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ $750-per-tick­et fundrais­ing Christ­mas din­ner last Sat­ur­day and at­tend­ed the event with his nephew.

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj did not at­tend the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s staff Christ­mas din­ner, which was al­so held on Sat­ur­day.

The sit­u­a­tion has trig­gered neg­a­tive re­ac­tions from sev­er­al PNM mem­bers and of­fi­cials, some of whom be­lieve Ma­haraj’s ac­tions have dam­aged the par­ty’s in­ter­ests.

On Tues­day, PNM leader Pen­ny Beck­les de­clined to say whether dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion would be tak­en against Ma­haraj. She cit­ed his ex­pla­na­tion and said she would not com­ment fur­ther “at this time.”

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day, oth­er par­ty of­fi­cials sought to al­lay con­cerns, say­ing PNM mem­bers should not be wor­ried.

“The par­ty is deal­ing with it and will man­age the sit­u­a­tion. A new year is com­ing,” one of­fi­cial said, ac­knowl­edg­ing that the mat­ter rep­re­sents an­oth­er test for the par­ty’s lead­er­ship.

While there have been in­di­ca­tions of dis­agree­ment with­in the par­ty over how the is­sue should be han­dled—in­clud­ing calls for Ma­haraj to “do the right thing” and re­sign vol­un­tar­i­ly—of­fi­cials said PNM deputy leader Colm Im­bert (Leg­isla­tive) is ex­pect­ed to ad­vise the lead­er­ship on man­ag­ing the mat­ter.

Im­bert did not re­spond to a What­sApp query yes­ter­day.

When asked whether the sit­u­a­tion could lead to Ma­haraj’s re­moval, a re­quest for his res­ig­na­tion, or a rep­ri­mand, Guardian Me­dia was again told, “The par­ty will man­age the sit­u­a­tion.”

Oth­er par­ty of­fi­cials said the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment’s re­la­tion­ship with Ma­haraj had been strained for some time, part­ly due to dis­agree­ment over a pro­posed build­ing project.

Ma­haraj has re­cent­ly said he has been ad­vo­cat­ing for sev­er­al de­vel­op­ments in Ari­ma, in­clud­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a so­cial wel­fare of­fice.