Election fever has once again gripped the MIC after a lull of nearly 15 years during which the party enjoyed extraordinary stability and growth and maturity successfully discarding its chair- throwing image of the 1980s.

The last time the party was this roiled was in 1989 when deputy president S Subramaniam challenged president S Samy Vellu and lost. The incumbent polled 59 percent of the 40,000 votes.

Subramaniam cried foul the next day but the Malaysian media that had always given him a sympathetic ear shifted focus to Queen Elizabeth who had just arrived to open the Commonwealth Summit in Kuala Lumpur.

As the party now prepares for elections on June 24, the upcoming contest for the deputy president's post is, in the view of veteran MIC leaders, a continuation of that great 1989 battle between the two implacable enemies.