Cousins out to oust Kula from Ipoh seat

(NST) - IPOH: There is no love lost between DAP vice-chairman M. Kulasegaran and his arch-rivals, Perak DAP chairman Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham and its secretary, Nga Kor Ming, as the former is convinced that the duo are trying to oust him from his Ipoh Barat constituency.

A DAP insider revealed that Kulasegaran's recent tirade against Ngeh and Nga on social microblogging site Twitter stemmed from alleged attempts by the cousins to replace him with their supporter.

"Kulasegaran views the cousins' act of not inviting him to a dinner they had organised in his constituency as a way to embarrass him among party members. He also believes that their intention to discredit him is to kick him out in preference for compliant personalities aligned to their camp."

The source, who is closely acquainted with Kulasegaran, said Nga, who is Pantai Remis assemblyman, harboured dreams of contesting the Kepayang state seat in the coming polls, which was one of three state seats within the Ipoh Barat parliamentary constituency.

Last year, incumbent Kepayang assemblyman Loke Chee Yan had announced that he would not be seeking reelection.

"Apparently, Kepayang is ideal for Nga, who resides in Ipoh. His potential successor in Pantai Remis state seat is a 35-year-old woman, who is a member of the DAP Pantai Remis branch and Nga's henchman."

The source, who described Nga as the "architect of DAP's destruction", said Kulasegaran was not favoured by Ngeh and Nga as the duo felt Kulasegaran was the reason for their poor popularity within the Indian community.

"It is said that the state DAP leaders are not worried about losing Kulasegaran and they are confident of winning all 18 state seats which the party won in March 2008.

"Their impression is that winning the Ipoh Barat parliamentary seat will come easily and guaranteed regardless of the candidate fielded."

It is learnt that Kulasegaran, Ngeh and Nga were only on talking terms in public, but did not make any attempt to mend the rift.

Kulasegaran recently took to tweeting his frustrations about being sidelined by Ngeh and Nga, and went as far as tagging them in the March 8 postings, which were still on his Twitter account.