MIC leaders make beeline to ROS

Fed-up with the silence from party leadership, disgruntled leaders are making a beeline to the Registrar of Societies to air their grouses with the hope justice would be served and action would be taken

PETALING JAYA: Disappointed with the eerie silence from the MIC top leadership, 20 party leaders have lodged three separate reports to the Registrar of Societies (ROS) complaining of unfair practices at the MIC elections in November 2013.

They want the ROS to declare the polls null and void and force the party leadership to hold fresh elections to pick 23 central working committee members and three vice-presidents.

Former Youth chief T Mohan and ex-CWC member Madhu Marimuthu lodged a report to the ROS on Jan 10, after waiting for nearly two months for the party to decide if a re-election was warranted.

The two leaders, who contested in the polls and lost, had submitted two memorandums to the party leadership outlining why a re-election was needed but there was no response from either the president G Palanivel or his deputy, Dr S Subramaniam, on issues raised.

Mohan confirmed that he had lodged a report to the ROS on the matter with several other CWC candidates.

It is learnt that former treasurer-general Jaspal Singh and former Youth chief SA Vigneswaravan have also lodged two separate reports with ROS. The two leaders lost their bid for vice-presidency in the election.

“To be honest, I regret bringing the matter to the ROS but I have no choice. I am doing this for the party and not for me.”

“It was crystal clear that the polls were marred by various election malpractices, including a massive difference in the number of ballots cast and delegates who voted at the polls. Todate, six petitions had been submitted to the party but they are still pretending to be in dark over this issue. This has forced us to lodged the ROS report,” Mohan said when contacted.

The party held it elections on Nov 30, in Malacca to pick 23 CWC members and three vice-presidents. A total of eight candidates contested the vice-presidency while 88 aspirants fought it out for the CWC seats.

Mohan said he was not confident that the party’s CWC would be able to come up with an amicable solution to the issue.

“How can we except the CWC to discuss this matter without fear or favour. All the CWC members except the appointed ones were directly involved in the elections. There are also complaints against the president.

“He should also excuse himself from the meeting since there are allegations against him as well. That leaves the deputy president (Dr S Subramaniam) as the lone voice with the right to decide,” he added.

Dr Subramaniam is the president-in-waiting following Palanivel’s announcement prior to the party presidential election in August last year that this would be his last term and that he would relinquish the post in 2016.

Mohan said the best way to deal with the issue would be to set up an independent body to investigate into claims of election discrepancies in the party polls.

FMT learnt that Palanivel has set Feb 5 for the first CWC meeting after the MIC elections. The CWC meeting apart from discussing the election issue would also delve on the fate of MIC treasurer-general R Ramanan, who was convicted for fraud earlier this week. Ramanan was recently appointed by Palanivel replacing Jaspal.

In a related matter, Puchong MIC division Youth chief Subash Chandra Bose today lodged a police report against Ramanan at the Sentul police station.

In the report he urged the police to investigate Ramanan, following a High Court order requiring Ramanan to return RM5.5mil to renowned psychiatrist Dr Mahadevan. The court ruled Ramanan had fraudulently received the money.

Citing the court order, Subash said Ramanan was convicted for criminal breach of trust and the police should investigate him under Section 420 of the Penal Code.

“There are also other police reports against Ramanan lodged last year for the same reason.But, until today there is no action from the police. I hope the police will be fair to everyone and would not take sides in this matter,” said Subash.