PETALING JAYA, April 26 — MCA said it is confident in wresting back seats lost to the Opposition during the previous polls in Selangor, citing voter disillusionment with Pakatan Harapan’s candidates who are already in office.

Petaling Jaya (PJ) Utara Barisan Nasional (BN) vice-chairman Ch’ng Soo Chau said some voters in the area are seeking change, claiming their elected representatives have failed to perform their responsibilities for the past decade.

"For the past 10 years, our service centre in SS3, Kelana Jaya has provided all sorts of services to the people such as legal aid rendered to the people by some of our division members who have legal background.

"For example, we have assisted some of them with obtaining permanent resident status for their foreign wives or children and also with getting in touch with the city councilors after their complaints were not entertained,” he told Malay Mail in an interview.

When asked about how MCA was going to win the Damansara (formerly PJ Utara) constituency following the Election Commission’s (EC) redelineation, Ch’ng said the biggest concern is getting to know the new voters — 60 per cent of them ethnic Chinese — within a huge area.

"Before the redelineation, the state seat of Kampung Tunku had about 32,000 voters, but it has been increased to about 49,000 and the addition of the Bukit Lanjan state seat means there are about 64,000 new voters in the constituency.

"However it is our duty as usual for the party to make PJ a better place for everyone and we will take up the challenge because our motto is ‘lawan tetap lawan’ despite the magnitude of such efforts,” the Kampung Tunku MCA branch coordinator said, using the Malay term meaning "the fight goes on”.

In the redelineation report, the parliament constituency of PJ Utara has been renamed Damansara, PJ Selatan is known as PJ, with the state constituencies Damansara Utama renamed to Bandar Utama and the inclusion of the Bukit Lanjan seat that was previously under Subang (now renamed Sungai Buloh).

With the latest redelineation exercise, the Damansara constituency would now have three state seats of Bukit Lanjan, Damansara Utama and Kampung Tunku.

Damansara would become the biggest constituency in Selangor and also Peninsular Malaysia, having 150,439 voters, a significant increase in voter base compared to the 84,456 voters PJ Utara currently has.

The proposed PJ seat would have 129,363 voters, as compared to 78,404 voters PJ Selatan currently has.

In 2013, DAP’s Tony Pua won PJ Utara with a majority of 44,672 votes, while PKR’s Hee Loy Sian won PJ Selatan with a 19,216 majority.