Sivarraajh strongly tipped to contest Cameron seat, which Kayveas claims BN will lose if MIC is fielded.
Denying that he had ever registered as a myPPP member or ever worked for its president Tan Sri M Kayveas as claimed, MIC Youth chief C Sivarraajh said the party can just terminate his membership if it was true.
“I am surprised by this matter and how Kayveas got this information.
“I categorically deny that I was ever a PPP member.
“I don’t mind sending them a letter asking them that, if they have a record showing I’m a member, to terminate my membership,” Sivarraajh said.
He was responding to claims made by Kayveas that Sivarraajh had joined myPPP on June 21, 2003, at the Brickfields Utama branch.
Kayveas had also reportedly shown a copy of a membership card allegedly belonging to Sivarraajh to the media, stating that his membership number was 333981.
Sivarraajh said that he took part in MIC activities in Puchong in 2004 and officially registered as a member in 2005. He also denied ever working for Kayveas in the Taiping seat which the myPPP president had won that same year.
Sivaraajh, who has been widely speculated to be contesting the Cameron Highlands seat, said Kayveas should move on and focus on election works.
“This is election time, I hope he accepts the reality that Cameron Highlands is an MIC seat,” he said.
He added that he will not resort to any harsh action against myPPP over Kayveas’ allegation of his membership in the spirit of cooperation as both MIC and myPPP are “fellow components of BN”.
“My focus is now on Cameron. I hope myPPP will help MIC win Cameron for BN, and we would also help PPP in any constituency that they contest,” he said.
MIC and myPPP have long been in a tussle for the Cameron Highlands seat, which Kayveas claims to have worked hard for in the past few years.
It was reported that he has even threatened that myPPP may leave Barisan Nasional (BN) if he is not given the seat.
“At this juncture, I don’t think that it is appropriate to do this because the (caretaker) prime minister is trying to win more seats.
“Being a senior politician and president of the party, he (Kayveas) should not take Najib for ransom and threaten him. I think it’s not right, he should leave it to the BN leadership to decide (seat allocations),” Sivaraajh said.
In 2013, former MIC president Datuk Seri G Palanivel won the seat with a majority of 462 votes.
Currently, there are 31,547 registered voters, comprising 10,667 Malays, 9,442 Chinese, 6,500 indigenous, 4,813 Indians and 125 others.
The Sun daily reported that Kayveas said the party wanted to see what was offered to it and how it could move forward with BN if the constituency given to it was not what it had been working on all this while.
He added that this will be the second time the Cameron Highlands seat would be taken away from myPPP.
He said previously it was taken away in 2004 and then again in the last election.
He said the party was asked by the BN leadership to go to Cameron Highlands because no one was serving the people there after the incident with Palanivel.
“Now that we have put in all the hard work, suddenly the party that had ignored the seat wants it back,” Kayveas was quoted as saying.
He also said that to parachute in a candidate who had hardly done any work there would not bode well for BN.
He said the voters prefer a local and someone who has shown commitment to the people there.
“For us, it is important that BN wins the seat but there is a strong possibility that a new face might be rejected by the voters,” he was quoted saying.
He added that myPPP had also worked hard to ensure that BN wins back the Tanah Rata state seat.
Earlier, he said that BN will lose if it decides to put an MIC candidate in Cameron Highlands.
“MIC has been missing from the ground and was left rudderless until only four months ago. In the last election, they even lost by a margin of 462 votes. If they were to contest again they would surely lose,” Kayveas reportedly told the Malay Mail over the phone.
Kayveas also said that BN had promised myPPP that they would get four senators in the last election but they were only given one.
“We can’t live on empty promises but at the same time we know that we can deliver a seat to BN,” he was quoted saying.
Currently, myPPP Vice-President Datuk Loga Bala Mohan Jaganathan is a member of the senate.
BN secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Mansor had previously offered Segambut, a DAP stronghold, to Kayveas, who rejected the offer.
“Maybe Tengku Adnan should try and stand in Segambut, maybe he can win that seat,” Kayveas said in an audio recording obtained by FMT from the launch of the myPPP manifesto in Cameron Highlands.
Kayveas said his friendship with Tengku Adnan remained, but his patience was wearing thin.
“If you do not want us (in BN), tell us nicely. Do not give us seats to lose and then say you have given us seats but you cannot win.
“He is a very close friend but as the sec-gen he has been very unfair when it came to seats (negotiation).
“We (myPPP) would have left in 2008 if it was not for Tengku Adnan’s persuasion. We stayed back because of him, thank you very much.”