The anointed candidate for the deputy president's post G Palanivel secured 185 nominations as opposed to incumbent S Subramaniam, who received two.

According to a report in Tamil Nesan , the figures were released by MIC election steering committee head K Vijayanathan.

Palanivel has been handpicked by party president S Samy Vellu to challenge his estranged deputy of more than two decades in the June 24 polls.

Despite the odds, Subramaniam has always maintained that he is confident of winning the much-anticipated contest.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nesan - which is aligned to Samy Vellu - said the recently concluded nominations clearly revealed that Palanivel was the right man for the job.

In a related development, Vijayanathan told Bernama that the election steering committee will be flexible with the withdrawal of candidates in the party polls.

He said that although the deadline for withdrawal of candidates was three days after the filing of nominations, the committee had decided to use its discretion to allow for withdrawals after the stipulated period.

He said, however, that "once the ballot papers are printed, we cannot do anything about it".

"Once the ballots are printed, it is not practical to change it...but they (candidates) can announce that they have withdrawn and we will leave it to the delegates," said.

President's men score big

Nominations for the posts of deputy president, three vice-presidents and 23 Central Working Committee (CWC) members were held last Sunday.

The party's election by-laws state that a three-day period will be given to candidates to submit their withdrawals. In this election, the withdrawal period ends at noon on Wednesday.

Seven candidates will fight it out for the three vice-president's seats. They are incumbents S Veerasingham and KS Nijhar, party secretary-general S Sothinathan, Kuala Lumpur MIC chief VKK Teagarajan, former CWC member and former Sri Rusa state assemblyman E Yohevel, MIC veteran M Muthupalaniappan and P Thiagarasan, a relatively unknown candidate from Shah Alam.

A record 52 aspirants are vying for the 23 CWC seats, the party's highest decision-making body.

For the posts of vice-president, Sothinathan obtained the highest number of nominations with 168, followed by Nijhar (157), Veerasingham (148), Muthupalaniappan (3), Teagaran (2), Vohevel (2) and Thiagarasan (2). A total 1,442 delegates will be casting their ballots at the polls.

Veerasingham, Nijhar and Sothinathan are the president's "preferred" candidates.