Nijhar rebukes MIC Youth leader in amnesty row

KUALA LUMPUR, May 1 — A senior MIC leader lashed out at his colleague in the Youth wing today as the party agonises over an amnesty programme for those once sacked by former president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu.

MIC disciplinary committee chairman, Tan Sri K.S. Nijhar, publicly rebuked Youth secretary C. Sivarajah for filing a complaint with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) last Friday.

Nijhar had scolded his party junior and a couple more others through a statement, saying they “do not understand what an amnesty really means”.

He was responding to Sivarajah’s complaint against the Indian party’s powerful central working committee (CWC), which had decided earlier to return expelled members to their former positions after granting them a pardon for allegedly offending the leadership.

Sivarajah accused MIC’s top leaders of breaching the party’s constitution for personal political motives.

The party’s CWC had offered amnesty to four sacked members, former Youth chief V. Mugilan, V. Subramaniam, K.P. KP Samy and G. Kumar Aaman, and also the chance for them to return to the party, in a bid to shore up support ahead of elections.

The four had rebelled against Samy Vellu and demanded he resign from the presidency he had held for over 31 years.

Samy Vellu stepped down last December, after picking deputy, G. Palanivel as his replacement.

Sivarajah had questioned whether the leadership was fair in granting amnesty, which he said was not stipulated in the party constitution, to allow for their swift reentry into MIC, and raised several other provisions to do so.

The Youth secretary also said Mugilan had declared he would challenge T. Mohan for the Youth chief post in the party’s next election slated for 2013, which he said was suspicious.

Nijhar refuted the arguments, saying the only issue was whether the CWC had the power to pardon expelled members.

“In CWC’s view, the answer is YES because the MIC constitution gives the CWC wide powers to settle internal matters. Based on these wide powers, the CWC has granted an amnesty,” he said.

“The purpose of this amnesty is to unite and strengthen the party to face the next general elections. This is a creative and innovative idea,” he added.

Nijhar explained that once amnesty is granted, the expelled members are considered to have been forgiven and their slate wiped clean and they can be reinstated to their previous party positons.

“Reinstatement is different from readmission. Reinstatement is retrospective and the issue of waiting two years does not arise,” he stressed.

“Therefore, there is no breach of any clause in the MIC constitution,” he said, and added that he would be happy to have a dialogue with Sivarajah and the other Youth council members on this issue.