Ketari Indians mostly forgotten except on Deepavali: DAP

comments     Susan Loone     Published     Updated

Elections empower people. So it is with the upcoming by-election in Ketari where Indian Malaysians make up a little more than five percent of the voters in this rambling rural constituency.

Most of their issues, which have been set aside since the last general election in 1999, will be raised again during the eight-day campaign trail which started yesterday on nomination day.

DAP Selangor state committee member, T Kannan, said its rival Gerakan has not done anything for the community except celebrate annual Deepavali, the Indian festival of lights.

"It (Gerakan) claims to be a multi-racial party but it has not put up any Indians for the 1999 general elections," Kannan told malaysiakini .

"Although Indian Malaysians make up almost six percent of Pahang's voters, the state executive council has no Indian representative," he lamented.

On March 31, BN Gerakan's Yum Ah Ha will meet DAP's Choong Siew Onn in a straight fight. The Ketari state seat fell vacant after its representative Loke Koon Kum passed away early this month.

The constituency has a total of 17,143 voters of which 53.83 percent (9,228) are Chinese Malaysians. Malay Malaysians constitute 39.12 percent (6,701) while Indian Malaysians make up 5.21 percent (843).

No land title yet

Kannan, who is heading the DAP campaign in Indian-dominated areas such as Belut, said the community is unhappy with the state government's reluctance to hand over the land title for the Marathaandavar Murugan Temple in Maran.

The 110-year-old temple the oldest in Pahang has yet to get approval for its land title although the temple committee had been applying for it for over 20 years, he added.

"But they were given only a historic title which is indefinite. The title can be revoked anytime and the temple demolished," Kannan said.

He said the DAP would bring national issues such as Tamil education into the forefront at the Ketari campaign.

"We want to ask why 60 percent of Tamil schools have not been converted into fully aided schools and why the government has failed to improve the schools' poor condition," he said.

"We also want to know why only 1.5 percent of the total government budget for education is allocated to Tamil schools," he added.

He said DAP would also highlight the lack of privatisation projects for Indian companies and human resource training plans to help poor Indians upgrade their skills for better employment opportunities.

Uncalled for remarks

Meanwhile, the party's national publicity bureau secretary Gobind Singh Deo lambasted Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for his "completely uncalled for" personal attacks on Choong, the DAP candidate.

Abdullah had said that DAP was forced to field Choong as the Ketari candidate as the party had no other leaders of calibre.

"Abdullah should maintain some of the feathers in his cap and resist making personal and low attacks against candidates in elections," Gobind said in a statement today.

"There is also much to be said about certain BN leaders but the DAP has always adopted clean campaigns at elections respecting the fact that some level of decorum should exist at any level of competition," he added.

Gobind said Choong is worthy of elections and has the calibre to represent the people as he had obtained a large number of votes in the 1999 general elections.

Gobind was referring to Abdullah's statement in the News Straits Times that the DAP no longer had leaders of calibre, forcing the party to field 34-year-old Choong for the third time to contest the state seat.

Abdullah said Ketari voters had twice rejected Choong, a quality control executive, but the DAP still wanted him to contest.

"This shows that DAP does not have members who can become wakil rakyat ," he said after BN's Yum and Choong submitted their nomination papers at the Bentong district office yesterday.



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