Malaysian Indian Congress underperforms in polls

The much anticipated increase in support for the Malaysian Indian Congress failed to materialise with the party winning four seats in the just- concluded polls as a major shift in support of the ethnic Chinese towards the opposition marred its performance.
The Election Commission chairman Tan Abdul Aziz Mohammad Yusof announced that ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition led by Najib Razak has taken a simple majority with 133 seats, 21 more than the threshold required to form a government.
The opposition alliance led by Anwar Ibrahim Pakatan Rakyat won 89 seats in the polls yesterday.
Ethnic Indians in Malaysia have overwhelmingly backed the ruling Barisan Nasional which triumphed in the general elections.

MIC, the largest ethnic Indian political party and a major component of the ruling coalition, contested in nine parliamentary seats and has won four, one better than their performance in 2008 elections.
Leading the MIC winners were party president G Palanivel, who registered a 462-vote majority over opposition Democratic Action Party's M Manogaran for the Cameron Highlands seat and his deputy Dr S Subramaniam who defeated opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat's Chua Jui Meng with a 1,217-vote majority in Segamat.

The other two victors were MIC vice-president M Saravanan, who retained his Tapah parliamentary seat over K Vasantha Kumar and youth MIC wing chief P Kamalanathan, who retained his Hulu Selangor seat over Khalid Jaafar of PKR with a 3,413 majority.

The five MIC candidates who failed to win were party vice- president S K Devamany, party secretary general S Murugessan, Information chief V S Moga, MIC division deputy chairman Prakash Rao and another MIC division leader A Sakthivel.
The party performed badly in the states, winning only five out of the 18 state seats which it contested.
The winners included incumbents M Asojan (Bukit Gambhir) and R Vidyananthan (Kahang) in Johor and newcomers K Ravin in Tenggaroh, Johor, and L Manikam in Jeram Padang, Negri Sembilan.
Ravin is the son of former Johor MIC deputy chairman S Krishnasamy who was shot dead in the MIC office in January 2008.

Ethnic Indians, contesting on opposition DAP tickets secured four seats in parliament with their chairman Karpal Singh, an ethnic Indian Sikh retaining the Bukit Gelugor seat, Gobind Singh (Puchong), Kasturi (Batu Kawan) and M Kulasegaran (Ipoh Barat).
Ethnic Indians fighting the polls on PKR ticket secured three seats with Sivarasa in Subang, Maniwannan in Kapar and PKR vice president N Surendran winning in Padang Serai.
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. It's then supremo Samy Vellu lost his Sungei Siput parliamentary seat which he had held for four terms.