GEORGE TOWN, April 27 ― Exactly 23 years ago, RSN Rayer helped the late Karpal Singh in his election campaign for the Jelutong parliamentary seat.
This GE14, the 47-year-old will instead be defending the very seat that his idol Karpal was known for.
“Never in my dreams have I ever thought that one day, I will be given this humongous task to defend Jelutong, not just to win the seat but to be the voice of Jelutong like what Karpal did,” he told Malay Mail in an interview.
A lawyer by profession, Rayer joined his very first election campaign in Karpal’s team back in 1995.
“I joined his office as a chambering trainee in 1995 and that was the first year I joined DAP and helped in Karpal’s campaign,” he said.
Since then, Rayer, who regarded Karpal as an idol and a father figure, had always helped in the late lawmaker’s campaigns throughout the years until he himself stood for elections in the Seri Delima state constituency in 2008.
“I also helped Karpal campaign in 1999 when he lost Jelutong seat to Lee Kah Choon after 21 years of holding the seat, I helped him campaign for the Bukit Gelugor seat in 2004 which he won and we campaigned together in 2008,” he said.
He said Karpal’s outspoken and no-nonsense manner in fighting for the rights of the people in his constituency earned him the monicker “Tiger of Jelutong”.
He said it would be a tall order for him to try to match up to the Tiger of Jelutong.
“There was and will always be only one Tiger of Jelutong, no one else can be the Tiger of Jelutong, I can only hope that I will be able to fight for the constituents’ rights in Parliament as vocally as Karpal did,” he said.
All these years of following Karpal in his campaign trails meant that this time around, campaigning in Karpal’s former seat will bring back bittersweet memories for Rayer.
Karpal’s death in 2014 was a huge blow to Rayer as he had lost not only an idol but a mentor who had guided him in his profession as a lawyer and a politician throughout the years.
He said he had never stopped thinking of Karpal even though it has been four years since his passing.
“I think of him every day and he is always close to my heart, he was my mentor when he was alive and I hope he is my guardian angel now,” he said.
His devotion to Karpal was such that he has an altar with Karpal’s picture in his office and his home, which was set up with the permission from Karpal’s family.
He also carried with him a small black and white photo of Karpal in his shirt pocket at all times, together with a stack of talismans that he kept for blessings.
The Jelutong parliamentary seat was traditionally an Opposition seat when the state was under Barisan Nasional’s administration.
Karpal won the seat in 1978 and defended it for five terms until he lost it in 1999 with only a very slim margin of 775 votes.
The seat was held by BN’s Lee Kah Choon for two terms before DAP’s incumbent Jeff Ooi Chuan Aun won back the seat in 2008 and retained it in 2013.
Ooi has been dropped from contesting the seat this time and Rayer was shifted from the Seri Delima state seat to Jelutong.
Rayer, who lives in Seri Delima, said the Jelutong constituency is just next to the Bukit Gelugor constituency so the constituents can judge him based on what he had done for Seri Delima.
The Jelutong constituency has over 71,000 registered voters and Ooi defended the seat with a 25,750-vote majority in 2013.
