MIC president Dr S Subramaniam is keeping close to his chest, the names of candidates who are nominated for the parliamentary and state seats in the upcoming 14th general election.

Without letting the cat out of the bag, he said, the party, however, had identified the potential candidates and in the process of discussing with the BN leadership on which seats MIC would maintain or swap with component parties.

"We have identified potential candidates for nearly all the seats. There could be last minute changes, which sometimes can occur,” Subramaniam, who is also the health minister, said in an interview with Bernama recently.

Due to the ongoing electoral boundary delineation exercise, he said the candidates' list in Selangor and Perak were not ready at the moment.

It was reported that MIC was facing a tough time to finalise its candidate lists and there are likely to be some changes despite the GE14 list already being sent to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who is also BN chairperson.

"Priority will be given to the party leaders who have some sense of popularity in their respective areas. I am also trying to choose a candidate from the former party president G Palanivel's faction this time," he said.

Subramaniam said between 50 and 60 percent of MIC candidates contesting in the nine parliamentary seats and 19 states seats would be new faces, and hoped the party’s choice of “winnable, likeable and credible” candidates would be a winning recipe for MIC and BN.

MIC had also been working very hard at Teluk Kemang and Sungai Siput to recapture the parliamentary seats after losing it to the opposition in the 2008 and 2013 general elections, he said.

Subramaniam said the mindset of voters and social media would be among the major challenges faced by MIC candidates during GE14 and the candidates must be capable and think out of the box to handle them.

"At one time, there was no issue and we can put any BN candidate anywhere. People supported them because they were BN candidates. Now it has changed and much depended on whether the candidate is accepted at the respective places, especially in urban areas,” he said.

Subramaniam also advised the Indian community not to be influenced and hoodwinked by the opposition's empty promises as they clearly had no agenda of development for the betterment of the community.

"In BN, we have laid out real programmes and blueprints for the community. Last year, on April 23, Prime Minister Najib launched the 10-year Malaysian Indian Blueprint (MIB) to help the country’s Indian community, promising to raise incomes and educational levels, opening up business opportunities and more jobs opportunities in government,” he said.

Commenting on the opposition manifesto for the Indian community, he said MIB was a more clear and defined government document, which had been endorsed by the cabinet for implementation.

"We have made our commitments in the MIB. We have done much progress and seen the results. There are many more programmes to uplift the community. This BN government will deliver what they have promised based on our track records," he added.

Among the key points of MIB were doubling the income of poor Indian families, reserving seven percent of places in public tertiary institutions and the civil service for Indians by 2026, as well as creating jobs for the community.

-- Bernama