KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 — Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate M. Manogaran should not be allowed to contest in the Cameron Highlands by-election as his team has allegedly violated election laws by giving out money to volunteers, an MIC leader asserted today.
To that effect, MIC Youth’s council member Arvind Krishnan lodged a police report at the Sentul police station today.
“We condemn the actions of the PH machinery in Cameron Highlands who clearly has violated election laws and we want the Election Commission to cancel Manogaran’s candidacy,” said Arvind when met at Dang Wangi police station here.
“MIC Youth is making police reports nationwide, not to politicise this issue, but we’re calling for a free and fair election.
“Tomorrow we will go to Putrajaya and meet the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to lodge a case against Manogaran,” he added.
PH has been embroiled in controversy after pictures emerged on social media of a woman in a PH shirt giving out cash to other people similarly clothed, with the party later clarifying that this was ‘reimbursement’ for volunteers' petrol cost.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has since said it was not wrong to dispense cash if it was from government schemes or programmes.
However, Arvind remains unsatisfied with those answers.
“If the money is for all then why didn’t I get anything?” he asked.
“How can you give them money without expecting them to vote for you? If they’re volunteers they should be helping without expecting anything in return. Even Lim Kit Siang is saying they gave them RM20 each. How is this legal?”
He also said the MIC’s Datuk C. Sivaraajh’s victory was nullified even though he was not pictured vote-buying, insisting his party has never conducted such practices.
“When MIC was campaigning we never gave money to anyone, instead we cooked large amounts at our base of operations. We were more than happy to feed the hungry but never gave out cash,” he said.
