Following a show of force by party president G Palanivel yesterday, MIC deputy president Dr S Subramaniam and his supporters held their own assembly today.

Claiming to represent the will of 2,758 MIC branches, the group gathered at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) and voted to oust Palanivel through two resolutions.

Nearly all had raised their hands in support of the two resolutions.

The first resolution was to adopt the Registrar of Society’s (ROS) directive to hold a re-election, as well as the court’s findings that Palanivel and four others had acted on their own when they filed a suit in a bid to overturn the directive.

The second resolution to uphold Article 91 of the party constitution, which states that no party member shall bring party matters to court without the consent of the party’s central working committee (CWC), and those who do so shall cease to be members immediately.
According to organisers, some 6,000 MIC members were in attendance, including 95 division chiefs and 45 division coordinators, filling up almost every seat in PWTC’s Dewan Merdeka.

Subramaniam was among those on stage today in his capacity as ‘acting president’, although Palanivel had said that he has suspended him.

Also sharing the stage with him were former MIC president S Samy Vellu (photo), Perak speaker SK Devamany, Hulu Selangor MP P Kamalanathan, and vice-president S Saravanan, among others.

Ironically in a case of déjà vu, Palanivel and his supporters had also held a rally at the same venue just a day before, in which he blamed Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for MIC’s leadership crisis.

He had claimed to have the support of 2,760 branch chairpersons.

‘Palanivel’s no longer MIC member’

Meanwhile at a press conference later, Subramaniam elaborated that the resolution meant Palanivel’s membership in MIC had ceased from the moment he filed his case in court early this year.

The same also applies for vice-presidents S Sothinathan (photo) and S Balakrishnan, former secretary-general A Prakash Rao and its director of strategy AK Ramalingam, who had filed the suit with Palanivel.

Subramaniam also announced that MIC will run its nomination period for its re-election from July 10 to July 12, and will be run by the party’s 2009 CWC that was given recognition by ROS as the party’s legitimate office bearers.

Voting will commence a week later, and barring any obstacles, should be complete before October, he said.

The new committee will be considered as the 2013 committee, and hence its three-year term will end next year.

When asked about Palanivel’s call for a fresh election in August, Subramaniam said there is no legal basis for this.

This is because those elected in 2013 could then argue that they have a right to hold office until December 2016.

It would also mean that the election has nothing to do with the ROS decision or the court order.

“We will conduct (the election) according to the law. The next few weeks will further strengthen the legal basis for the things that we have done,” he said, when asked how he would keep Palanivel’s faction from holding the election.

 Allegations of fraud

MIC’s leadership has been in turmoil since the 2013 party election, in which there were widespread allegations of fraud and misconduct.

The ROS declared the election invalid on Dec 5 last year and again on Feb 5 this year for all elected posts, but Palanivel and four others sought to reverse the order through the High Court.

However, the court ordered on June 15 that they comply with the ROS directive.

Meanwhile, when asked the extent of Najib’s (photo) alleged in MIC’s party matters, Subramaniam said the prime minister and BN chairperson had no role to play at all.

Instead, it was purely because the 2013 election was not conducted properly, and disgruntled members went to complain to the ROS after failing to obtain a satisfactory response from the party.

“This is a process that started with the ROS and went to the court, so there is no role for the prime minister.

“At most, he had met us twice to say, ‘Why don’t you all solve this problem?’” he said.