Health Minister and Barataria/ San Juan candidate Dr Fuad Khan said for some nine years he was victimised by the former PNM administration.
Khan was addressing party supporters at a public meeting held at the Barataria South Secondary School on Monday night.
A senior neurologist, Khan said from 2001 to 2010 the PNM had refused to employ him while the party was in power.
“That is what I am showing you is the level of victimisation you will feel. And you tend to forget it when you in government. When we were kicked out of office in 2001 victimisation started down the line,” Khan said.
He also sent a clarion call to party supporters, urging that for the PP Government to remain in power, the marginal seats must be won.
Acknowledging that victory would entail hard work, Khan said: “If you want to see us back in office it is not going to be easy. Everything that we do is a movement towards victory on September 7, but it does not come easy.
“We need to get every single vote in our country.”
Zeroing in on the undecided voters, Khan said it was particularly important that they were targeted.
“We have to go out and bring in most of the undecided voters. Those voters who asking: ‘What have you done for me lately? What will you do for me tomorrow?’
“We are going to tell them, ‘Once we get back in office not only will you get your library but you will also get an expansion of the San Juan market,” Khan said.
He said a couple months ago when the market was opened the “PNM corporation” (San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation) kicked out most of the vendors who had been there for some 20 to 30 years and brought in their own people into the market.
“So that is what you are facing. That is the discrimination you will face if the PNM ever gets into office. It is something we have to be very careful about because when you walk around the country you hear that the election tight,” Khan said.
Also in attendance was St Joseph MP and Trade Minister Vasant Bharath who Khan said was also contesting a marginal seat.
“We have to take the corridor to get into office. Make sure that you call your families and friends in St Joseph to make sure Vasant become(s) the next MP for St Joseph. But it does not come easy,” Khan added.
Turing to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Khan said: “What do you get with the Prime Minister....you get a good-looking woman. You get somebody with a melodious voice...compare the other side. You get somebody who goes to the ground and kisses you and makes sure you are well taken care of. That is called love.
“All you ever see Rowley kissing anybody and hugging them up? I haven’t,” Khan said.
But in the same breath Khan described Rowley as his colleague, adding that he would “never bad talk him.”
Hypocrite Rowley
The UNC’S campaign manager Rodney Charles has accused Rowley of being a hypocrite.
He said over the past few months the PNM was too detached from reality to realise that the UNC’s campaign was based on issues.
“In an attempt to acquaint them with the most important issue of all...the issue of accountability, we launched the Rowley accountability campaign. We have asked Rowley to produce the plan for the nation but thus far he is yet to respond. Instead he said he launched a hate campaign,” Charles said.
He accused Rowley of not only being unwilling to account but also a hypocrite.
“Where can you find more bacchanal than on the PNM platform? He himself is guilty of encouraging his supporters to look at everything else but that which is important,” Charles said, adding that on many occasions Rowley had made “vile remarks” about Persad-Bissessar.
He said there had been many “disgusting displays” by PNM members on the political platform including those from the PNM’s lady vice-chairman Camille Robinson-Regis.
“Who is really running a smear campaign? Keith Rowley has no plan. He is an angry man with a multitude of vanity projects that they want to use taxpayers money to finance,” Charles added.
In 2006, he said, Robinson-Regis used a Government-issued credit card for her personal purposes .