Palanivel on the stump, waiting for an election

By Baradan Kuppusamy - The Malaysian Insider

HULU SELANGOR, Feb 17 — In this sprawling constituency twice the size of Malacca MIC deputy president Datuk G. Palanivel (picture) is striving to make a comeback after losing the constituency he had held since 1990 to PKR man Datuk Zainal Abidin Ahmad by 198 votes in the 2008 general elections.

Being an MP and a minister, even a deputy minister, is of utmost importance in the MIC and Palanivel no longer holds any of those jobs. But he is deputy MIC president in a patronage driven party and keenly feels the loss of Hulu Selangor.

If he had won the story would have been different.

“I have learnt to live with what life and God delivers,” Palanivel told The Malaysian Insider.

For the first time too, long time party president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu is also neither an MP nor a minister and consequently the leadership focus in the party is shifting to Datuk Dr S. Subramanianm, who won his Segamat seat and became the sole MIC Cabinet minister by virtue of the fact that the two top leaders of the party lost their constituencies.

Dr Subramaniam is senior vice-president in a party where Palanivel is deputy president and making a political comeback and the president Samy Vellu, after having lost everything including the respect of the community he claims to represent, is holding on to a sinking ship.

Their collective adversary Datuk S. Subramaniam, after his second defeat to Palanivel in October last year at the party elections, has become a non-entity.

After defeating Subramaniam, Palanivel has turned his attention to the Hulu Selangor constituency of which he is the Barisan Nasional coordinator and enjoys federal allocations to service the constituency.

The constituency has some 10,000 to 12,000 Indian voters and Umno is laying claim to it on grounds that the percentage of Indians is shrinking. One of the problems Palanivel faces is that a sizeable number of Indians live in Hulu Selangor but vote outside the area while Indians living outside the constituency return to vote.

It is an anomaly he is trying to redress to better his chances of retaking the seat from PKR’s Zainal Abidin who is ill and seldom visits or services his constituents.

It is hard to see the presence of the Pakatan Rakyat Selangor government in this constituency except for old election banners.

There is a general sense of neglect and weariness everywhere. The grass has not been cut for months and there is rubbish everywhere. The economy, locals say, is dying for want of fresh ideas and projects.

“Banners and slogans we have plenty but there is nothing much else,” said Jaafar Abdul as he sips tea at a roadside stall in Bukit Beruntung, the dead township once sold as the emerald PJ Two by the Barisan Nasional Selangor government.

Palanivel has to win the hearts and minds of the alienated and angry voters of Bukit Beruntung and Lembah Beringin, another dead township nearby, if he is to retake the constituency from PR.

If he fails to take it back, either in a potential by-election or the next general election, his career in MIC is all but over.

“I have done so much for the constituents, I should not have lost. I got blamed for all the failed projects,” he said ruefully recently as he visited Malay constituents living in urban squalor in run down low cost flats.

Many of the residents have no choice but live in these run down and poorly serviced cubicles in Taman Bunga Raya, Sri Kenaga.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has allocated RM35 million to replace roofs in low cost projects but while residents appreciate the improvement it might be too little too late to lift their spirits and for them to look kindly at the Barisan Nasional.

The alienation of the people is deep and explains why the PKR won the seat.

Neglect remains however two years after PR took over the state administration..

For now it is almost like elections again in Hulu Selangor as Palanivel traverses the constituency meeting Malays, Chinese and Indians. There has been an air of anticipation for months now because of Zainal Abidin’s illness.

In the last elections Palanivel says he garnered enough Malay and Indian support but did not have enough Chinese votes to carry him through.

This time he is banking on getting all of the former voters who had voted him in 2008 and is working to convince just five per cent more Chinese voters to his side to retake the constituency.

“People know they have lost a hard worker in me,” he told The Malaysian Insider as he entered a Chinese temple in Ulu Yam township to light jossticks and pray.

“They know the guy they voted for is never here but I am here every week.”

It is a long hard road for Palanivel — to retake the seat, inherit the MIC presidency from an obstinate leader who refuses to give up, and if at all, revive the fortunes of the battered MIC.

The first step is too retake Hulu Selangor and in that he is helped by PR’s failure to deliver.