KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 – The MIC survived a tough battle before emerging victorious in four parliamentary seats when the results of the 13th General Election (GE13) was announced last night.
Out of the nine parliamentary seats allocated to the MIC by Barisan Nasional, party president Datuk Seri G. Palanivel (Cameron Highlands), deputy president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam (Segamat), vice-president Datuk M.
Saravanan (Tapah) and Putera co-coordinator P. Kamalanathan (Hulu Selangor) walked out with victories. Major MIC casualties were vice-president Datuk S.K Devamany (Sungai Siput, Perak), secretary-general Datuk S. Murugesan (Kota Raja, Selangor) and national information chief V.S Mogan (Telok Kemang, Negeri Sembilan).
MIC candidates namely A. Prakash Rao and A. Sakthivel (central working committee member), both lost in the Subang and Kapar parliamentary constituencies, respectively, in Selangor.
In the GE13, MIC contested in nine parliamentary and 18 state seats, one less from nine parliamentary and 19 state seats contested at the last election.
In the 2008 general election, MIC had suffered a painful defeat where it won only three of the nine parliamentary seats and seven of the 19 state seats contested. As for state seats in the GE13, only five MIC candidates managed to scrap through, namely three in Johor and one each in Melaka and Negeri Sembilan.
The five seats were won by M. Asojan (Gambir), R. Vidyanathan (Kahang) and Raven Kumar Krishnasamy (Tenggaroh) all in Johor, M. S. Mahadevan Sanacy (Gadek) in Melaka and L. Manickam (Jeram Padang) in Negeri Sembilan.
The 13 candidates who lost in the race for state seats were S. Ananthan (incumbent for Lunas), M.L. Maran (Bukit Selambau), both in Kedah; M. Karuppanan (Bagan Dalam), L. Krishnan (incumbent for Perai), both in Penang; C. Sivarraj (Buntong), S. Mokan (Jelapang), R. Supramaniam (Hutan Melintang) all in Perak.
K. Parthiban (Ijok), N. Rawisandran (Batu Caves), T. Mohan (Seri Andalas) all in Selangor; R. Goonasakaren (Sabai) in Pahang; Dr P. Thanaletchumy (Port Dickson) Negeri Sembilan and M. Soorianarayanan (Puteri Wangsa) in Johor.
Palanivel, 67, who took over from Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu however, did not enjoy an easy ride, as the MIC leader faced a multi-cornered fight in his constituency before scrapping through with a slim majority of 462 over main contender M. Manogaran, 53, the former Teluk Intan MP from DAP.
Subramaniam defeated PKR’s Chua Jui Meng while Saravanan retained the Tapah seat by a 7,927-vote majority in a four-cornered fight against independent candidate Ridzuan Bani, PKR’s K Vasantha Kumar and Berjasa’s Shaharuzzaman Bistamam.
Kamalanathan who faced a four-cornered fight involving PKR candidate Khalid Jaafar and two other independents Datuk Dr R.Santhara Kumar and Radzali Mokhtar, retained the seat with a 3,414-vote majority.
BERNAMA
