Another minister in Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar-led People’s Partnership government in Trinidad and Tobago has been removed from her Cabinet.
Just a week after Minister of Social Development, Dr. Glen Ramdharsingh was fired last week by Persad-Bissessar over an altercation with a flight attendant, this time Tourism Minister Chandresh Sharma has resigned following a police probe into an assault allegation made by his ex-lover, Sasha Singh.
Sharma’s resignation comes six days after Ramdharsingh was axed from the Cabinet for disorderly behavior on board a domestic flight (Caribbean Airlines Ltd) from Tobago from Trinidad on March 16, 2014.
Sharma, 54, resigned on Monday in wake of a police investigation into reports against him by Singh, 30, who alleged that the former minister pushed her against her car at Grand Bazar car park on March 12, 2014 causing her to hit her head on the vehicle, fell to the ground and suffered a concussion.
A medical report stated that Singh suffered from a swelling to the head and other minor injuries.
Singh alleged that she had gone to the car park to meet the minister to confront him with a woman who he allegedly had an affair and a 12-year-old child from that relationship, whom he refused to maintain and when she did this Sharma became violent.
Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar issued a statement in which she emphasized that wrongdoing will not be tolerated in her government.
“There is no privileged escape, no allowance for arrogance, no forgiveness for indiscretion. Those days are gone, such compromise has expired. The responsible leadership which we promised to usher in a dawn of a new political era is the new political currency,” she said.
Sharma said he will clear his name of the allegations of abuse levelled against him by Singh.
Sharma has been a Member of Parliament for more than two decades.
He has become the 15th minister to be axed from the PP since it came into power in 2010.
