According to the political grapevine, S Samy Vellu's son will be the BN's choice for the parliamentary seat.
Vel Paari is said to have even held a meeting with several non-governmental organisations and grassroots leaders in the constituency which was under the grasp of his father for more than 30 years before his fall at the 2008 general election.
Party insiders insist that Vel Paari would be the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate for the seat, which is now in the hands of Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s (PSM) Dr Michael Jeyakumar.
“I am very sure Vel Paari will contest in Sungai Siput at the next general election,” said a local MIC leader who did not want to be named.
His confidence is the result of Vel Paari’s visit to the constituency two weeks ago and the declaration by Vel Paari that he had been directed by MIC president G Palanivel to identify problems faced by the people there.
Sources claimed that during the meeting, Vel Paari had told the audience that he would even go to the extent of renting a house in Sungai Siput for the people to have direct access to him.
He, however, stopped short of declaring himself as the BN candidate for the seat.
“The meeting is clear-cut: Vel Paari has stated that the battle is to win the hearts and minds of the people here, ” said a source.
Uphill battle
Political observers, however, feel that although Vel Paari could be a good choice, the battle to win the seat would be an uphill battle for the ruling coalition.
Jeyakumar is no pushover. He became a hero among the people in the constituency after his detention under the Emergency Ordinance(EO) several months ago.
The Sungai Siput seat is rather unique in nature. Its former MPs have always been MIC presidents until 2008.
The late VT Sambanthan held the seat from 1955 to 1974 while Samy Vellu defended the seat for eight consecutive terms until his loss three years ago.
Another source also said that the days of “throwing money” to get votes was over and “young voters are likely to reject (those who) who give money for their votes”.
According to him, Jeyakumar’s detention, the handling of the Maika Holdings shares and several promises not delivered by Samy Vellu would make the battle even harder for Vel Paari.
“Although Vel Paari is a bit more humble and has the personal touch with the people here, it is not an assurance that he can win the seat,” said the source.
He added that the failure of Samy Vellu to construct a new building for the Methodist School and a new Tamil school at Taman Tun Sambanthan has eroded support for the BN.
“Issues like Indian squatters, failure to allocate land for agriculture and farming (mainly cattle breeding) and lack of major industries are also hot election topics,” he added.
Concrete settlements
Sources said if Vel Paari is serious in contesting the seat, he needs to come up with solutions to these issues.
There must be concrete settlements to the woes of the Indian community and “only then we might see voters crossing over to the BN from Pakatan Rakyat,” a source said.
A MIC leader, who did not want to be named, said at present, voters were still in favour of Pakatan, not because of the opposition coalition’s national policies, but because of Jeyakumar.
He said the seat is Chinese majority, with nearly 24,000 out of the total 52,000 voters being Chinese.
“Normally the turnout on polling day in Sungai Siput is 70% and it is predicted that in the 13th general election 70% of the Chinese votes will favour Jeyakumar,” he added.
This, he said, would mean that Pakatan needed only 6,000 to 7,000 votes from Malay, Indian and Orang Asli communities to retain the seat.
The seat has 14,000 Malay, 11,000 Indian and 3,000 Orang Asli voters.
No comments:
Post a Comment