KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 – Every time MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu criticises his former blue-eyed boy Datuk S. Sothinathan, who is contesting for the deputy president’s post in the Sept 12 election, it shakes up the camp of front-runner and incumbent deputy president Datuk G. Palanivel.
The reason? Sothinathan’s status as an “independent” candidate rises one notch each time Samy Vellu criticises him.
“By criticising him, Samy Vellu is giving him higher status and helping him gather more votes,” MIC insiders said.
While Palanivel is tied up with Samy Vellu’s campaign in the election and is a key part of the president’s line-up of candidates, Sothinathan is campaigning on his own steam, just like the other contestant, Datuk S. Subramaniam.
The campaign of Sothinathan, who has “deep pockets” in the words of one supporter, is better organised than his rivals’, and showing a strong presence..
“He has struck out on his own and is holding his own against the campaign by Samy Vellu and Subramaniam,” a seasoned MIC insider said. “Before long the fight might shape up into a face-off between him and Palanivel. Mark my word, Subramaniam might end up a distant third.”
Samy Vellu is aware of the inroads Sothinathan is making and has started to criticise him in earnest in an attempt to derail his campaign.
Samy Vellu first called Sothinathan “ungrateful” for refusing to heed his advise to not contest for the number two post.
Then he called him a traitor and finally, on Thursday, Samy Vellu issued a statement “disowning” Sothinathan as a father would disown a son.
Samy Vellu specifically told MIC delegates at a gathering at the posh Bukit Jalil Golf and Country Club that even if Sothinathan won in the contest, he would not accept him as his partner.
“He has forgotten who he was and how I lifted him up,” Samy Vellu said with Palanivel beside him on the stage.
Nevertheless, each time Samy Vellu rubs Sothinathan down, his former protege is gaining ground in the three-cornered fight.
And that is making MIC veterans suspicious. They are beginning to wonder whether running down Sothinathan is part of Samy Vellu’s game plan.
“He is hardly criticising Subramaniam and I find that strange,” said a former MIC vice-president. “What is his game plan…is he using reverse psychology to help Sothi to win by constantly criticising him?”
Sothinathan was not just a blue-eyed boy but was also in the thick of most of Samy Vellu’s schemes and, thus, is a repository of many secrets, MIC insiders say.
“He is really a key partner of Samy Vellu, unlike Palanivel. Sothinathan and Samy Vellu are inseparable and their rise and fall is intertwined.’
“They will stick together,” the insiders said, adding that Palanivel might be politically close to Samy Vellu but is not admitted to the inner sanctum.
Unlike Samy Vellu and Subramaniam; Sothinathan is not fielding a line-up for the other posts up for grabs but merely fighting for the deputy president’s post.
His campaign is build around his Vote for Change slogan and he has published numerous pamphlets and leaflets, and even posted a letter to all delegates explaining his vision for the MIC and Indian community.
After graduation, Sothinathan joined the Samy Vellu-controlled Koperasi Perkerja Jaya as an accountant and has been under Samy Vellu’s wings ever since.
The 49-year-old was Samy Vellu’s former political secretary and won the Teluk Kemang parliamentary by-election in June 2000.
Samy Vellu has said that when Sothinathan contested, he was not even a MIC member.
He was appointed MIC secretary-general in September the same year and elected vice-president in 2006.
In the 2008 general election he lost the Teluk Kemang seat by 2,804 votes to PKR candidate Datuk Kamarul Bahrin Abbas. Sothinathan had won with a 17,777-vote majority in 2004.
Sothinathan was previously Health Ministry parliamentary secretary and deputy minister for Natural Resources and Environment.
He is famous among the younger generation as the one and only MIC leader to be suspended in parliament for raising issues close to the Indian community but that gain is erased, according to some, by his alleged involvement, with Samy Vellu, in the alleged hijacking of nine million Telekom shares in 1990.
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