Petaling Jaya, Feb 11- An MIC leader today 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,” said MIC central working committee member V Subramaniam.
Yesterday, a party insider claimed that the last MIC election was invalid as the number of delegates had exceeded the maximum 1,500 allowed in the party constitution.
The party insider also gave a breakdown on the delegates as follows: 127 from national body which is, one party president, one deputy president, two vice presidents (as Dr S Subramaniam had been promoted to deputy president), 31 CWC members including nine appointed CWC members, 38 delegates each from Youth and Women wings and 16 delegates representing Puteri MIC.
“Taking the election committee’s official number into account, the total number of ordinary delegates was 1,361. This does not include 35 delegates from Tanjung Malim and Kuala Selangor divisions who were not allowed to vote in the election after their division were suspended.
“By adding it, the number will increase to 1,398 and adding another 127 from national body, then the number would be 1,523, which clearly violates article 74.1 and 74.2 of the constitution,” the party insider was reported saying.
However, Subramaniam, who is also known as Barat Maniam, dismissed the insider’s claims and insisted the number was below the 1,500 mark.
He also said that the Kuala Selangor and the Tanjung Malim division were suspended from voting in the polls.
“The election this time around included the president, deputy president, two vice presidents, CWC members and delegates from Youth and Women Wing,” said Subramaniam.
He also said that the Puteri Wing was disallowed from voting, based on the decision made by the CWC back in October last year.
On why the Puteri Wing was disallowed, Subramaniam said that it was due to some problems in the movement.
On claims that a former youth CWC member MP Shanmugam being allowed to vote despite not being a delegate, Subramaniam insisted that former was a delegate.
“The MIC’s management working committee endorsed Shanmugam as a delegate. Plus, the proposal to make Shanmugam a delegate came from Dr Subramaniam himself,” he said.
-FreeMalaysiaToday
