MIC's silly threat

 Let's not beat around the bush on this silly one, okay.

When MIC president Vigneswaran yesterday said his party will "wait and see" on the Umno-Pribumi Bersatu fight, it was actually a threat to Umno.

"Give us what we want or we will leave and join Pribumi Bersatu gang," was basically what the MIC president was saying.

The guy went on to praise PM Muhyiddin for appointing his deputy Saravanan as human resources minister even without BN's recommendation.

"See, Muhyiddin gave us what Umno had not even bothered to offer," was the real message behind that.

But I can understand why MIC is threatening Umno now.

"Hey, Umno is under pressure because it does not want to be bullied by Pribumi Bersatu anymore, this is the time to squeeze it to get what we want," must be MIC's thought.

And Vigneswaran said MIC wants its "traditional" and "winnable" seats.

So privileged.

Well,  Vignes, you want to once again contest Kota Raja, is it?

It's by right a winnable place for an MIC candidate - 43.15 per cent Malays, 27.68 per cent Indians, 27.66 per cent Chinese and 1.51 per cent others.

Yet, Vignes lost that one as an incumbent to a Pas woman in 2008 by a majority of over 20,000. The other MIC candidates there were crushed even worse in 2013 and 2018. 

Where else? Sungai Siput?

That one is 36.28 per cent Chinese, 34.28 per cent Malays, 20.98 per cent Indians, 8.55 per cent Others.

Former MIC president Samy Vellu was a long time MP there until he lost it to a PKR's Indian candidate in 2008 by almost 2,000 majority. MIC candidates there continue to lose by even bigger majorities in 2013 and 2018.

Looking at the trend in such constituencies, MIC can't solely blame Umno for the losses. It must also be something wrong with itself that not even the majority of Indians want to vote for it.

I even believe that there are more Malays who are willing to vote for MIC candidates than Indians.

So, where are these MIC's "traditional" "winnable" constituencies?

Overwhelmingly Malay majority constituencies?

I seriously think MIC should just concentrate on doing work to win back Indians' support for itself rather than issuing threats to Umno like yesterday.

As far as I'm concerned, Umno had proven itself to be loyal to its allies and giving them seats where they themselves could have won on their own.

Look at the most recent one- Tanjong Piai by-election.

It's a clearly Malay constituency, and Pakatan fielded a Malay from Pribumi Bersatu at that time, yet Umno agreed that MCA was to contest there because it was a traditionally an MCA seat.

They did the calculation and found that BN could still win it with an MCA candidate and they gave it to them.

As for Cameron Highland, they did the calculations and decided that it's better to put an Orang Asli candidate instead of one from MIC and it worked out wonderfully.

If the calculations had said it's better to place an MIC guy there, I believe they would have done so.

It was not because of anything else.

MIC needs to have some faith in its ally.

Yes, there were some noises from within Umno that wanted to take over all the seats but those were only noises.

The Umno leadership had proven that they were capable of making the right choices as far as the party's allies were concerned as in the Tanjong Piai by-election.

Really, MIC was really being silly for making that threat yesterday.

I think MCA would agree on that. 

They did issue the same threat to Umno as what MIC did yesterday after BN lost GE14 but now they know that was not the right thing to do.

Umno people accepted the decision to field Wee Jeck Seng and worked hard to ensure he wins in Tanjong Piai. In fact I think Umno election workers worked harder than MCA people in that by-election.

I remember a video showing a Wanita Umno member standing in heavy rain by the roadside holding a placard begging for Tanjong Piai folks to vote for the MCA candidate.

MIC should listen to MCA president Wee Ka Siong on this one.

But if MIC still insists on being gangsta, then so be it.

Who are they to talk about the need for Umno to accept Pribumi Bersatu as an ally in a coalition when they themselves for decades objected against any other Indian-based party to join BN.

As far as I'm concerned, they can go join Pribumi Bersatu if that's what they think is best for them.

I believe Umno and MCA could find a different Indian-based party to represent the community in BN.