KUALA LUMPUR, April 5 – MIC president Datuk Seri G.Palanivel today appeared to share Datuk Seri S.Samy Vellu’s assertion that the former party chief is a “winnable candidate” if fielded in the upcoming general election. However, Palanivel said it was up to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to decide whether Samy Vellu should be given a second chance to recapture the Sungai Siput parliamentary constituency in the general election.
“He (Samy Vellu) is a winnable candidate,” Palanivel, who is Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, told reporters after chairing the party’s central working committee meeting, here.
Palanivel said MIC had proposed a list of prospective candidates to stand in the elections to Najib, who is Barisan Nasional chairman. On Wednesday, former long-serving MIC president Samy Vellu declared himself a winnable candidate for the Sungai Siput seat should he be picked to contest there.
Samy Vellu, currently Malaysia’s special envoy to India and South Asia for infrastructure, lost his long-held parliamentary constituency of Sungai Siput in the 2008 general election to Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj of the Socialist Party, by a 1,821-vote majority.
BERNAMA
