Questions raised over ‘tampered’ nomination forms

Several quarters claim 'underhand' tactics are being deployed to ensure MIC president G Palanivel obtains more nominations for the upcoming presidential election.

PETALING JAYA: The MIC presidential election, slated for Sept 22, has taken a fresh twist with branch chairmen claiming that they were being asked to sign tampered nomination forms.

FMT has been receiving numerous telephone calls from MIC branch chairmen alleging that there were two sets of nomination forms distributed by the party headquarters and respective state offices.

They claimed that they were ‘shocked and confused’ over the nomination forms.

“One set has (party president) Palanivel’s name and his details printed on it. This is given to branch leaders who are not aligned to any particular leader.

“The same set is also distributed to Palanivel’s supporters. They only need to fill up their name and branch.

“If they support Palanivel, then they should write or print it themselves. This is like the Election Commission filling in nomination forms on behalf of the candidates,” said an irked branch chairman who contacted FMT.

The other set of nomination forms, the branch chairmen said, was blank and given to those known to be against Palanivel.

These branch leaders are from Selangor, Perak and Kedah. It is yet to be ascertained if other states were facing the same problem.

Some 3,900 branch chairmen are eligible to vote at the MIC presidential election next month to pick the president.

The party constitution requires a presidential candidate to obtain 50 nominations before he or she is eligible to contest. Each nomination form must be must have one proposer and five seconders. The proposer and the seconders must all be branch chairmen.

This would mean a candidate for the party top post must in total have 300 branch chairmen supporting the nomination.

Weeding out process

A branch chairman claimed that the distribution of two sets of nomination forms could be a tactic by Palanivel’s camp to identify branch leaders who supported other contenders.

Party deputy president and Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam is tipped to take on Palanivel, who is also Natural Resources and Environment Minister, for the party top post at the presidential polls.

“Branch chairmen are first asked if they wanted printed forms. If the answer is yes then they are identified as Palanivel’s supporters. If they say they want a blank form, then their loyalty to Palanivel is questioned,” said a branch chairman from Perak, who did not want to be identified.

“With two different sets of nomination forms, the party president can easily identify Dr Subramaniam’s supporters,” he added.

MIC election steering committee chairman K Kumaran when contacted declined to comment on the issue.

“I have not seen the nomination forms. Either blank or otherwise…so it would not be good for me to comment on this controversy,” he said.

Meanwhile, MIC Central Working Committee (CWC) member KP Samy, who was aligned to Palanivel, said the practice was “not something new”.

“Printing incumbent president’s name in the nomination forms happened during former president S Samy Vellu’s time,” he said.

He added that any challenger for the president’s post can request the party headquarters to have their name printed in the nomination forms as well.