GE14 | Have you ever received a phone call from your elected representative on your birthday? If you are a Hutan Melintang voter, there is a chance you would have.

Incumbent Hutan Melintang assemblyperson S Kesavan has made it a point to collect as many phone numbers of his constituents – by any means imaginable – to showcase his personal touch when it comes to politics.

In a recent interview, the PKR politician showed Malaysiakini that he had over 6,000 entries on his mobile phone contact list. He considers just 200 of these to be family members or close friends.

"Since I was voted in, I began saving the voters' contact numbers. I try to greet them on their birthdays.

“Six months ago, I have been calling voters every day to tell them why they must come back to vote for change,” he said.

This practice may seem rather extreme for a politician, but cold calling and endearing himself to strangers is something that Kesavan had already learned during his days as an insurance agent.

While canvassing for votes, Kesavan even asks voters to pass him the phone numbers of their children who are residing in the big cities.

“The parents have no problems giving me the contact numbers of their children who may be out of town or the country. They know me well and some consider me family,” he said.

Kesavan also admits to having a penchant for attending his constituents’ wedding ceremonies. Now in his second term, Kesavan said he has attended a total of 5,252 weddings.

“I’m keeping 10 boxes of wedding invitations as evidence,” he quipped.

For Kesavan, getting to know the voters is crucial as every vote counts in a constituency like Hutan Melintang, which PKR won with majorities of 1,721 votes and 1,240 votes respectively in the 2008 and 2013 general elections.

Compounding matters for PKR in Hutan Melintang is a 25 percent spike in voter numbers over the past five years, the bulk of which was added to the electoral roll in 2017.

Suspicious new voters

Kesavan said that the huge jump was suspicious because there was no corresponding increase in population. The neighbouring Rungkup constituency only saw a five percent increase in voter numbers over the same period.

His checks on the ground revealed that many of the new voters were not staying in the addresses used for registration, while some of them had oil palm plantations, without any houses, recorded as addresses.

Even more disheartening for Kesavan is the fact that 1,611 new military servicemen were registered as voters at a yet-to-be-completed army camp some 2km from his service centre near Simpang Empat.

According to reports, the new Hutan Melintang Army Camp will house 5,000 military personnel once completed. Only 50 live there at present, Kesavan said.

He added that he initially tried to use the Election Commission objection hearings to strike off the dubious voters from the list, but it proved too costly as there were simply too many.

After all else failed, Kesavan held a hunger strike for 48 hours in front of the Election Commission’s headquarters in protest. He ended up being hospitalised.

No longer ‘marginal’?

Although Hutan Melintang may just be another one-street town to most, the seat is of extreme importance to BN because it forms one-half of the Bagan Datuk parliamentary constituency, where the incumbent MP Ahmad Zahid Hamidi won with a relatively slender majority of 2,100 votes in 2013.

A manipulation of the voter numbers and demographics in BN’s favour will likely erase the perception that Bagan Datuk is a “marginal seat” after the upcoming general election.

A straw poll by Malaysiakini with Hutan Melintang folk showed that Kesavan was a popular figure among Indian constituents.

Lorry driver M Mahentheran, 44, said he and his family will continue to vote for Kesavan because of how he treated his constituents and worked for them.

"Kesavan is my brother, my mother calls him ‘son’," he said, though adding that he would nevertheless throw his support behind Zahid, the caretaker deputy prime minister.

"(Kesavan) attended my sister's wedding even though we didn't send him an invitation, and he came to see us when my brother passed away.”

Mahentheran (photo) recalled how Kesavan stopped several local enforcement officers from seizing the property at their premises after they failed to pay their assessment fees.

"He turned up in 10 minutes after we called him. He just negotiated with the officers and my friend came to pay the tax.

"He may lack the financial ability to help us, but I don't want his money anyway. What touched the people is that he is here whenever we need him," Mahentheran said, adding that BN leaders were not up to the mark.

At the time these interviews were conducted, PKR had not named its candidate for Hutan Melintang. It has now been confirmed that PKR will field incumbent Kapar MP G Manivanan for the seat, while Kesavan will contest in the parliamentary seat of Sungai Siput.

Grocery shop owner R Tiagarajan said he was against BN’s decision to field a candidate from Umno instead of MIC for Hutan Melintang, warning that this would likely cost BN votes.

"Cannot lah, this is an Indian seat and has been given to MIC all along. The Indian community is always with BN," said Tiagarajan, an MIC member.

Yesterday, BN confirmed that Umno’s Khairuddin Tarmizi will be its candidate for Hutan Melintang, a departure from its practice of fielding MIC candidates over the last six general elections.

This is the second in a three-part election series on Hilir Perak.

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