Sivamani sought to distance his party from the incident, pointing out that the alleged defection took place at a rally in Taman Desa Bakti, adding that the area was in the Kampung Banjar voting district controlled by the Umno, the BN’s Malay party.
He also said he could not recall if the rally was organised by MIC or Umno, adding that his party held two to three rallies a night during the campaigning period.
“We have organised over 160 rallies in the past few weeks alone,” Sivamani told The Malay Mail Online when contacted.
The MIC leader admitted that his party has a small operation centre in the neighbourhood, but said it was to cater to the 685 Indian voters living in that area.
“Leave it, this is not a very important issue,” Sivamani added, when pressed for further details.
Sivamani also claimed there were several DAP members who have been helping the BN with their campaign, saying they were upset their party had decided to field Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud instead of its Sungkai assemblyman A. Sivanesan, who is also the Perak DAP vice-chairman.
In a rally last Tuesday, the BN had boasted 150 dissatisfied DAP members quitting their party for the ruling coalition. One woman from that camp later told reporters that she was still with DAP.
Three ethnic Indian women were presented as DAP supporters at the event that drew some 200 people, also mostly Indians.
According to news reports, the three women said they were frustrated with their party as they had not received aid from the previous two Teluk Intan MPs.
Most of the people at the function — where food like noodles were served — were reported to have been invited to a nearby house, where boxes containing popular food items such as Milo, milk powder, sugar, cream crackers, condensed milk, flour and curry powder were given out.
Umno information chief Datuk Ahmad Maslan who officiated the event has been reserved in his comments about the event, only saying later that function was organised by MIC and not the Malay party.
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