Former leader says MIC being shortchanged

A former MIC vice president Muthu Palaniappan says that MIC should not give up its traditional seats to Umno.

TAIPING: A former MIC vice president has sounded a warning to MIC that if it hands over its traditional seats to Umno, there will be no looking back.

M Muthu Palaniappan said Umno will do this under the guise of selecting winnable candidates for the coming elections.

Muthu told FMT today that MIC under the weak leadership of G Palanivel was being bullied by Umno in surrendering some of its traditional seats to Umno to ensure that BN wins these seats in the coming polls.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had been reported as saying that only winnable BN candidates will be given seats in the coming polls and that there is no room for BN component parties to claim traditional seats as was practiced in the past.

“MIC will be committing political suicide if it gives up its traditional seats to Umno as they will never get them back from Umno,” warned Muthu.

Earlier this year, Muthu defected to PKR after differences with the MIC leadership and now he is set to be the PKR candidate to contest for the Teluk Kemang parliamentary seat.

Muthu’s advice is that MIC should ask for replacements for the party’s traditional seats that Umno wants or demand to contest such party seats for the 2013 polls before surrendering them.

The latest speculation in Negeri Sembilan is that the traditional MIC seat of Teluk Kemang is being eyed by Umno to be contested by former menteri besar Isa Samad.

This comes after speculation that some of the MIC leaders like Palanivel, MIC vice president SK Devamany and party secretary-general S Murugesan did not want to contest in this traditional MIC seat, allegedly fearing defeat.

Another media report had quoted that MIC deputy chief Dr S Subramaniam’s parliamentary seat of Segamat in Johor might be taken over by Umno and the deputy chief pushed either to Malacca or Negeri Sembilan.

Meanwhile in Perak, the two traditional MIC state seats of Behrang and Pasir Panjang have been taken over by Umno, and MIC was supposed to be compensated for these two losses with a senator’s post and another state seat in Selangor.

However, Palanivel and former party state chief S Veerasingam had declined the Umno’s offer and had insisted on two more state seats.

It was also speculated that MIC was eyeing MCA’s two state seats of Buntong and Tronoh as replacements.