MIC CWC member taken to task

A division leader today questioned why party president G Palanivel was not coming clean on the party polls.

PETALING JAYA:  A MIC division leader today took party central working committee (CWC) member V Subramaniam to task for defending party president G Palanivel on allegations that the party polls conducted in November last year was riddled with discrepancies and irregularities.

D Palakumaran, a leader from the Batu MIC division said V Subramaniam, better known as Barat Maniam, should ask Palanivel to rebut all the allegations on the polls discrepancies as the president’s silence only strengthens speculation that the polls was indeed rigged.

Yeterday, Subramaniam dismissed claims that the party polls conducted last year had more delegates than the number allowed under the party constitution.

“This is rubbish. There were 1,453 eligible delegates but only 1,427 turned up to cast their ballots. So I don’t know where they got the 1,523 number from,” he had told FMT.

He also claimed that former youth CWC member MP Shanmugam was allowed to vote as he was a delegate to the assembly.

“The MIC’s management working committee endorsed Shanmugam as a delegate. Plus, the proposal to make Shanmugam a delegate came from (deputy president) Dr Subramaniam himself,” Subramaniam said yesterday.

Palakumaran however said Subramaniam’s arguement that Shamugam was a delegate was “utter nonsense” as Shanmugam’s term in the Youth wing came to an end when the Youth wing held their annual general meeting and picked new Youth CWC delegates before the Nov 30 party polls, which elected three vice-presidents and 23 CWC members.

“Since the Youth elections were held much earlier than the contest for posts in the main-body, Shanmugam was automatically disqualified as a Youth delegate. Even Palanivel has no power to ask Shanmugam to vote. An extra delegate must obtain the consent of the CWC, the party’s highest decision making body.

“But in this case he was asked to vote by Palanivel. I do not know where Palanivel got this power from. Furthermore who is this Subramaniam to answer on behalf of the party. He is just a CWC member. He is not the secretary general or holding any important position to answer on behalf of the president.” he added.

Grassroots unhappy

He further said Subramaniam was just recently allowed back into the party, after being sacked by former president S Samy Vellu, and was not even a CWC or party management committee member prior to the Nov 30, 2013 elections.

“He also has no authorisation to speak on behalf of the management committee which comprises the president, deputy president, three vice-presidents and the secretary-general. If he can make statements on behalf of the management committee, then other CWC members too can come out to make public statements on internal party matters,” he added.

He also took a swipe at MIC disciplinary committee chairmen KS Nijhar for ‘jumping’ over statements made by party leaders in the media.

“Nijhar wants disciplinary action against those to make public statements on internal party matters…so is he going to do the same with Subramaniam or will Subramaniam be allowed to speak on behalf of the president.

“We the grassroots members are very unhappy with what is happening in the party now. The secretary-general or Palanivel should be the ones talking and not some CWC member. We feel the new secretary general Prakash Rao is only a puppet waiting for strings to be pulled. He replaced an able person in A Sakthivel.

“Our advice to Palanivel is that please do your job. Do not delegate the president’s duties to someone else. It is his job to look after the party. Now it looks like Palanivel has sub-contracted his job of running the party to selected people in the CWC, I wonder how much these people are getting paid,” he quipped.