MIC Must Work Hard To Wrest Back Hutan Melintang - Zahid





HUTAN MELINTANG, Feb 3 (Bernama) -- MIC must work hard to ensure Barisan Nasional (BN) wrests back the Hutan Melintang state seat in the 14th General Election (GE14), said Deputy Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

He said BN wins in Hutan Melintang also the state seat of Rungkupwas very important towards ensuring a bigger majority for the Bagan Datuk parliamentary seat under which they come.

He pointed out that in GE13, Datuk Shahrul Zaman Yahya won the Rungkup seat for BN with a slim majority of 613 while his (Ahmad Zahid's) margin for Bagan Datuk was 2,108 votes.

"Losing Hutan Melintang (to the opposition in GE13 and my winning Bagan Datuk by just a majority of 2,108 votes is all ancient history.

"Now we must win back Hutan Melintang and as for Rungkupthe majority should be at least 6,000 votes so that the BN is on even stronger footing in Perak," he when opening Hutan Melintang's Pesta Ponggal 2018 at Dewan Sanmarka here today.

The BN's candidate for the Hutan Melintang seat in GE13 was R.Subramaniam, from MIC.

Ahmad Zahid also said that the Indian community in the country must appreciate the numerous efforts implemented by the government and MIC leaders who were going all out to champion their lot.

He said that since MIC was headed by its president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had announced numerous programmes for the Indian community, like upgrading Tamil schools nationwide and setting up the Special Secretariat for Empowerment of Indian Entrepreneurs (SEED) under the Prime Minister's Department.

As Dr Subramaniam is championing the welfare of the Indian community as a whole, we have to support him and the BN candidate.

Because, prior to this, there were no specific major programmes championed by my colleague (Subramaniam), so, the Indians must close the old book and open a new one for GE14, he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Subramaniam, who was also present, said that he was confident that MIC would be successful in winning the seat for BN in GE14.

The Health Minister said winning the seat was also important for the party as it was looking forward to have a state executive councillor from the community in Perak.

This time around (GE14) Indian voters in Hutan Melintang won make the same mistake again (vote for the opposition), he said

-- BERNAMA