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Below is a eulogy of Karpal Singh by DAP national vice-chairperson and Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran, delivered at the Riverfront Hotel, Ipoh on April 25.


Kawan-kawan ,

The sudden passing of Karpal Singh has left me with a feeling of being bereft. I feel a void in the party, in my circle of mentor-friends, in the legal fraternity and, above all, in the highest arena of the land, which is the national Parliament. 
 
Only the day before Karpal left us in the wee hours of April 17, I left for India, to witness the general elections there. I was supposed to be in Chennai for over a week under the care of the Election Commission of India. Less than 48 hours after I had arrived, I had to return to Penang for a sad duty, which was to attend my party chairperson's funeral.
 
It was a most dizzying change of focus – from witnessing a sprawling democracy's rite of renewal to paying homage to and bidding farewell to one of Malaysian democracy’s more lively exponents.      
 
I first met Karpal when I paid visits to the late P Patto who like Karpal was detained at Kamunting under the draconian ISA, along with more than 100 other social activists and politicians in 1987. I didn’t know him well then, but when I subsequently joined the party he became a close friend of mine.
 
When I first stood for Parliament, which was in a by-election for the seat of Teluk Intan in 1997, Karpal arrived early on nomination day to check my papers. Nomination papers can be the most deceptive of documents; a single error can be about as fatal to one’s eligibility as the one on the North-South Expressway was to Karpal’s life.
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