Negeri Sembilan: Will MIC get back the 2 state assembly seats from BN?
(R.Mutharasan)
SEREMBAN — Anticipation is mounting within the Negeri Sembilan Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) rank and file as the state assembly election approaches, with members eager to see if the party will be allocated its two traditional state seats to contest.
Historically, MIC has been allocated two state seats in every state assembly election until 2018. One was Sri Tanjong, one of the 5 state assembly constituencies in the Port Dickson parliamentary constituency. The other was Jeram Padang, one of the 3 constituencies in the parliamentary constituency of Jempol.
While Jeram Padam had long been a stronghold for MIC until the 2018 general election, the party has faced a tougher path in Sri Tanjung.
The last time MIC tasted victory in Sri Tanjung was in 2004, when Datuk T. Rajagopalu won the seat and subsequently served as a member of the State Executive Council (EXCO) for Negeri Sembilan. Since 2008, however, the party has suffered consecutive defeats across three elections to Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) component party, PKR, with Ravi Munusamy consistently winning the seat.
Following another defeat in 2018, the landscape shifted dramatically for the 2023 state elections. Under the seat-sharing agreement negotiated between the Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional (BN) coalitions, MIC was given only the Jeram Padang seat while the Sri Tanjong seat was allocated to PKR. Such a seat-sharing formula, where the party gets back only the seats it won, was also practised in other states. Disappointed and unhappy, MIC decided to pull out and did not contest in any of the 6 state assembly elections in 2023.
In the 2023 state assembly election, Sri Tanjung was allocated to PH, where PKR’s Dr G. Rajasekaran successfully won the seat. Meanwhile, Jeram Padang, a seat MIC had held for several consecutive terms since 1995, was subsequently handed to UMNO, whose candidate, Mohd Zaidy bin Abdul Kadir, won by a narrow margin of just 693 votes in the 2023 state assembly election.
Manickam Letchumanan, who served as the state assemblyman for Jeram Padang for 2 consecutive terms until 2023, has since left MIC with utter disappointment and is said to have joined PAS under the non-Muslim section.
The desire for MIC to reclaim these 2 seats is fueled by their significant Indian voter demographics. Sri Tanjung has 28.1% Indian voters, while Jeram Padang has an even higher concentration at 33.6%.
With the next state election on the horizon, the central question hovering over Negeri Sembilan MIC is whether the BN leadership will return these traditional strongholds to the party or offer alternative constituencies instead.
