KUALA LUMPUR: Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department T Murugiah is frantically hawking his "worth" to Barisan Nasional component parties MIC and Gerakan as uncertainty looms ahead.
But both parties, which are themselves struggling to stay relevant in Malaysian politics, are taking their time and weighing his actual worth.
Uppermost in their minds, it appears, is whether Murugiah, a former Youth chief with the People's Progressive Party (PPP), is all that he portrays and if he is “worth their investment”.
It is a known fact that Murugiah is seeking to strike a deal, any deal for that matter, as long as it includes a senatorship, which hopefully will give him a longer stint as deputy minister.
MIC wary
But rumour has it that MIC is hesitant as Umno had apparently recently taken back a senator seat which was “on loan to MIC” since ex-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s era.
“Also, we are worried that he’ll bring with him more trouble…We know what happened in PPP and at this juncture MIC really cannot afford to take on excess luggage.
“As it is, we don’t have enough senator seats to go round,” said a source familiar with the situation, referring to the unsuccessful coup which Murugiah had allegedly engineered in PPP.
Murugiah, who currently heads the Public Complaints Bureau in the Prime Minister’s Department, was appointed to the post on PPP’s senator quota after the March 2008 general election in which the party’s candidates, including president M Kayveas, were wiped out.
Kayveas, who was at that time a deputy minister, had handpicked Murugiah to fill his shoes after the former lost his Taiping seat in the polls.
But within a year in the coveted seat, Murugiah had allegedly planned a coup which eventually dragged the party’s credibility through the courts and the Registrar of Societies (ROS).
The High Court has since ruled Kayveas as the rightful president of PPP. ROS has also acknowledged the party and president’s legitimacy.
Gerakan's situation
On the Gerakan front, the issue is how does the party justify giving him a senatorship at a time like this.
“The question for us is, do we need another Indian deputy minister because a senatorship will leave us open to that?
“Now we have Kohilan Pillay who is the deputy foreign minister. We have many longstanding members who have fought for the party and who deserve it more than Murugiah.
“Even if he claims he can bring in the voters with his 220,000 members, the truth is no one has seen these members.
“It’s his word that he wants us to believe... mind you, this is the man who bit the hand that fed him,” said another source within Gerakan.
No Plan B
Meanwhile, Murugiah, when contacted by FMT today, said he was waiting for an appointment to meet with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.
“I’m waiting for an appointment with the prime minister. I will only decide my next course after speaking to him,” he said.
Murugiah confirmed that he was in talks with MIC but declined to offer details of his negotiations. He also declined to comment on Gerakan.
“Yes, I am in talks... I am trying to represent MIC or Gerakan. They are strong parties,” he said, adding that he had no intentions of starting a new party because “there are already too many Indian parties”.
Asked what his his plans were, Murugiah said: “I don’t have a Plan B. What I do have now is the Barisan Nasional Supporters Club (BNSC).
“If MIC and Gerakan don’t want me, then I will focus on the BNSC. We already have 2,100 branches nationwide with 210,000 members.
“We will be holding our division and national convention soon and we see what happens,” he said
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