MIC may field its Kedah chief V Saravanan, who is Bukit Selambau’s former assemblyperson, as candidate in the crucial by-election for the state seat.

Sources said party president S Samy Vellu was seriously considering nominating Saravanan since "he seems to be the right person with best chance to wrest back the seat from PKR".

Saravanan, 61, was Bukit Selambau representative and an executive councillor in previous BN Kedah government for 13 years between 1995 and 2008.

He did not defend his seat in last March general election to make way for a younger MIC candidate, S Krishnan, who lost by 2,362 vote-margin to PKR’s V Arumugam.

Arumugam, 54, has abruptly resigned from both his assembly seat and executive councillor post early this month, paving way for a by-election to be held on April 7, with nomination day on March 29.

When contacted, Saravanan however said he was unaware that he was being considered for Bukit Selambau.

Nonetheless he assured that if the party was to choose him, he would give his best to reclaim the seat for MIC.

"The candidacy is immaterial. The most important thing is for MIC and BN to work closely to win back the seat," he told Malaysiakini today.

According to the Kedah MIC chief, his party lost the seat in last year’s general election because BN traditional supporters, motivated by various factors, had deserted the coalition.

Bukit Selambau is one of the two state seats under the Merbok parliamentary constituency, the other being Tanjung Dawai.

Saravanan said BN’s defeat in the two state seats as well as Merbok showed that the coalition had lost more than 50 percent of support from each community across the constituency.

Recently Kedah Umno had demanded for Bukit Selambau to be given to the party considering that MIC had lost substantial Indian support in the area.

However, it is learnt that MIC had retorted that Umno too had lost substantial support among the Malays with its defeats in Merbok and Tanjung Dawai against both PKR and PAS.

MIC has no seats in Kedah

In the last election, Bukit Selambau, a semi-urban constituency, has a little over 50 percent Malay voters, with about 30 percent Indian, 20 percent Chinese.

bukit selambau state seat kedah 110209

With its sizable number of Indian voters in the constitutency, Bukit Selambau has been traditionally contested by MIC on behalf of the BN coalition.

Saravanan believes MIC has a fighting chance to win back the seat because "the electorates had realised making a mistake by voting in PKR."

During his time as assemblyperson, he said MIC had helped to build three Tamil schools, upgrade basic infrastructure, amenities and facilities in the constituency.

"However, neither the current Pakatan Rakyat state government nor the PKR assemblyperson had done anything worthy for the constituents over the past 10 months," he said.

After its dismal showing in the last general election, MIC is the only major political party without a single seat in Kedah.

Besides Bukit Selambau, it also lost its Lunas state seat where MIC candidate S Ananthan was defeated by PKR’s Mohd Razhi Salleh.

Saravanan and MIC are determined to win back Bukit Selambau to end that appalling record.