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Malaysiakini’s poll results on who should lead MIC after Samy Vellu looks similar to the poll I ran for 20 days in March.Malaysiakini had 5109 respondents while mine had only 138. Theirs ran for a day, while mine for 21 days.

Former deputy president S Subramaniam bagged 22.5 percent of the votes, the highest in the group. This was followed by SK Devamany, the deputy minister with 11 percent, while the sole MIC cabinet minister, Dr S Subramaniam took 10.5 percent. Palanivel was in fourth place at 3.1 percent while information chief M Saravanan picked up 2.5 percent. More significantly, bulk of the votes, 50.4 percent, went to no one in particular - a total of 2,544 Malaysiakini readers said “they did not favour any of the individuals mentioned”.

In my poll, Devamany took first place with 31 percent of the votes, followed by Dr S.Subramaniam with 8 percent, Dato Subra at 6 percent, Samy Vellu (3 percent) and Saravanan last at 2 percent. I did not put up Palanivel. As for those who didn’t want any of them, don’t care, or don’t have any idea, the total is 49 percent!

The similarity in both the polls is that the Devamany is in the top two list, while Saravanan came last. Interestingly, the top three positions in both polls were taken by Dato Subra, Devamany and Dr S.Subramaniam. A more glaring imilarity is that majority of the respondents did not like the choices available!

Malaysiakini asked few more questions as shown in the graphics above. Almost 90 percent wanted Samy, who has helmed the party for almost three decades, to quit “immediately”.

About 70 percent believed that MIC should shed its race-based politics, while 42.5 percent wanted MIC to quit BN and join the opposition Pakatan Rakyat.

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This is the first time that such a dinner ended abruptly – half an hour before it was supposed to. Samy left at 9.55pm about 40 minutes before it was supposed to end.

According to the Star, the former works minister tried to cajole the delegates to stay back.

Later, Samy Vellu gave a short speech and even sang a song. He then apologised and left.

Former party deputy president Datuk S. Subramaniam said Samy Vellu was “hurt by the delegates’ action - they were chatting among themselves and not paying attention to the cultural show that was going on”.

Some insiders commented that this is sign that Samy might have lost his grip on the party and branch chairmen. However, Samy later said that the media may twist this issue and say that its a sign of protest against him. He tried to salvage the situation by saying that:

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Before I go into Saravanan’s proposal, lets look at the statistics - only 34 Indians got the scholarship first, before being increased to 78. There are 180 appeals pending.

Now, why would PSD want to provide quota for the Indian community? Then, others like the Orang Asli, Kadazan, Bajau, Baba Nyonya, etc. will start demanding their part from the “bumiputra” category. This will erode the portion and break up the quota further, and may deprive more Malays of their previously easily obtained scholarships.

Secondly, there should some basis for asking 250 places for the community. Is there any proof that we have 250 top achievers year after year that should be getting scholarship? Is 250 derived from some sort of formula based on Einstenian calculation?

However I agree that interview component of the scholarship award is highly subjective and may be subject to manipulation.

Instead of asking for quota, Saravanan should ask for transparency, a well represented board of interviewers, an increase in scholarship amount or a more stringent criteria.

KUALA LUMPUR: The government must not lump Indians in the non-Bumiputera category, but fix the number of Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships for the community, MIC information chief Datuk M. Saravanan said yesterday.
He said under the present system, of the 2,000 PSD scholarships awarded annually, 55 per cent was allocated for Bumiputeras and the remaining 45 per cent for non-Bumiputeras.”Out of the 900 PSD scholarships for non-Bumiputeras, Indians initially received only 34, which was then increased to 70. We are now awaiting the results of about 180 appeal cases.”The Indians are already backward in terms of education, but yet we have to compete with all the other non-Bumis. The government should allocate, on an annual basis, 250 PSD scholarships for Indians,” Saravanan, who is also Federal Territories Deputy Minister, said.

“The current selection system is also flawed. The exam results constitute 70 per cent of the eligibility marks for the PSD scholarships. The rest is made up of the interview and such, which is very subjective.
“The people want transparency. If a student is the best, then he or she must be eligible for the scholarship. Now, we have students who have scored excellent marks but turned down by the PSD on the pretext that they failed in the interview.

“That half-an-hour interview decides a student’s fate. It might have taken students five years or more to obtain excellent results. Is that fair? It is not a level playing field.” - Bernama

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