With his wife Jayashree on one side and an oxygen tank on the other, the ailing MG Pandithan, ill with blood leukemia, announced Sunday a political plan to save his Indian Progressive Front (IPF) from folding up after his demise.

"My sickness is god's will but I want to save the party before my time is up," Pandithan told a packed news conference at a hotel here. Outside the hotel an ambulance stood ready to speed him to the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital where is intermittently warded since June.

About 100 of his hardcore supporters watched Pandithan field questions. The atmosphere was thick with emotion and awareness that this is probably the man's last public appearance.

He arrived at the hotel limping and masked - a pale shadow of the smiling and vigorous man he was before he was diagnosed with a rare kind of leukemia just three months ago.

His wife and an aide held him up and helped him walk and climb the short steps into the lobby of the hotel in Jalan Cheras here.

The puffy and worn-out face was strangely beatific without the sham concern-for-the-world mask politicians wore.

Pandithan was dressed in the trademark IPF uniform - a black coat over a red shirt - the colours appropriated from the dalit liberation movement in South India. A scarf hung around his neck and a face mask hung under his chin.

"Don't go near him, don't touch him, don't shake his hands," his aides kept saying as enthusiastic supporters tried to hug Pandithan and tried to ride with him on the lift to the 8th floor for the press conference.

Successor unnamed

Pandithan's message is simple - he will head the party until his end but will not name a successor. But he named two leaders to assist him - V. Semggutuan, the current secretary general to take charge of administration and K. Murugiah, a vice-president from Kedah to take charge of party discipline.

"These two will assist me during this time. They are my right and left arms now. After I am gone they can contest and the winner can keep the party. It is better the members decide who they want as leader," he said.

"I don't want to pick and make a mistake and get blamed for it. Let the members decide in a democratic manner who is the leader after me. It is their party," Pandithan said with a finality in his voice.

There was also a note of mild amusement when Pandithan said the IPF elections has been postponed, like Umno's, to after the next general election.

"I might not be around," he said. "But I want the party to live on until the last man standing."

The gravely ill Pandithan, who as vice-president was sacked from the MIC in 1989 and formed the IPF, also urged all Indian leaders to stop going for each other's throats and start working for the Indian community.

'Not joining MIC'

"When I was in hospital Samy Vellu visited me. We met face to face after so many years. I thanked him and told him we should just be friends. He agreed," Pandithan said hastily adding with a smile, "Don't write I am joining the MIC."

"Enough lah," Pandithan said urging anti-Samy Vellu forces in the Indian community. "20 years of fighting him (Samy Vellu) is too long. Let us forget it," he said.

He consistently declined to reveal any details of his illness always saying, "Ask my doctor."

What had brought the ailing Pandithan to leave the comfort of his house in Taman Bukit Serdang and brave the crowd of supporters and flashing cameras?

"Infighting," said a veteran IPF leader who was at the press conference. "And also persistent rumours that when Pandithan is dead, IPF leaders will fold up the party and joining MIC."

"The talk is that a deal has already been struck," the leader said.

At the press conference Pandithan consistently denied the rumours saying the IPF will outlast him.

Pandithan was a fiery orator who could thrill the lower classes with tales of the oppression they had suffered through the centuries and at the hands of upper caste Hindus.

He gave them hope and offered them a dream of better times but his covetousness also drove many of the best and brightest from his party.

Pandithan first showed his mettle as a grassroots leader by shoring up the likes of K Pathmanaban and S Subramaniam in the MIC and for that MIC President S Samy Vellu expelled him on spurious charges.

He formed IPF and took it into the Gagasan Rakyat Coalition led by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah that came close to unseating the Barisan Nasional in the 1990 general election.

An unrealised dream

Although IPF did not win any seat in the election but with Indians voting opposition it reduced the majorities of so many Barisan Nasional leaders that he was viewed with respect by the government leaders who took steps to draw him into their fold.

He was made a Datuk and a senator and given other perks. He was courted and IPF was promised BN membership but because of fierce opposition from the MIC he never realised that dream.

It was because of Pandithan's grassroots impact that the MIC was forced to take back Subramaniam who was dropped from the MIC list of candidates for the 1990 general election. Subramaniam was made senator and deputy minister over Pathmanaban who also coveted it.

By 1995 IPF was firmly with the BN although not a member but nevertheless more loyal to the coalition than some other members.

Without BN membership and with few patronage to distribute and with Samy Vellu enticing key IPF leaders, the party continuously hemorrhaged losing members and drifted aimlessly.

But as one group left after attacking Pandithan and his avarice, another group joined IPF. They were attracted to the magnet that was Pandithan and the dream of political legitimacy that he never delivered.

Asked for his final words as Pandithan struggled to get up to leave, he said: "My sickness is not my choice. It is from god. I accept it. I am glad to be alive to settle the IPF future. I thank my supporters for the good journey we had."