Manikavasagam to be dropped?

Grapevine in the party claims that the Kapar MP would be offered a state seat instead.

PETALING JAYA: Kapar MP, S Manikavasagam may be dropped as the opposition candidate of the country’s largest parliamentary constituency and instead offered a state seat by PKR for the upcoming general election, party sources revealed.

Sources said the first term Kapar MP has been offered a choice of two state seats – Sri Andalas and Bukit Melawati – in exchange for the Kapar parliamentary constituency.

In 2008, Manikavasagam beat S Komala Devi, the MIC Wanita chief, with a thumping 12,297 vote majority. As off March, 2008, the seat had 112,224 voters out of which 51% were Malays, 35% Chinese and 13 % Indians.

The Kapar parliamentary seat has four state seats – Meru, Sementa, Sungai Pinang and Selat Klang.

Sources close to Manikavasagam claim that the first term parliamentarian was keen to contest in Sri Andalas or Batu Caves and not  Bukit Melawati.

Incumbent Sri Andalas state assemblyman is Xavier Jayakumar, who is also a Selangor exco member.  Amiruddin Shari and MP Muthiah are Batu Caves and Bukit Melawati state reps respectively.

Party sources say Manikavasagam, fondly known as Mike in party circles, and Jayakumar could be involved in a seat swap.

“Xavier (Jayakumar) would go to Kapar parliamentary seat while Mike would take over at Sri Andalas. Mike will strenghen the state Pakatan while Xavier (Jayakumar) would move up to national politics,” a party source claimed.

Jayakumar, however, is not the sole option for the party in Kapar. There are talks that PKR may field “an outsider” in Kapar.

Lawyer and social activist K Saraswathy, who is yet to join any of the three main opposition parties, is another possible opposition candidate for Kapar.

The Barisan Nasional also appears to have two candidates for Kapar. The seat is allocated to the MIC under BN’s seat sharing system.

The largest Indian based political party in the country wants to field its Puchong division chief, A Sakthivel, a chemical engineer-turned-businessman. Sakthivel is also the party’s central working committee member.

But the local Umno division, it is learnt, is not in favour of Sakthivel and want an outsider as Kapar parliamentary candidate.

A local leader pointed out that D Ravindran, a director in the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) in charge of anti-corruption, would make a better BN candidate.

Both Sakthivel and Ravindran have been frequent visitors to the constituency since 2008.

All the four candidates from both side of the divide are actively engaging with the voters in Kapar and only time will tell who the next Kapar MP would be.