Padang Serai PKR against another ‘outside’ candidate

Padang Serai MP N. Surendran wading through floodwaters in his constituency in September last year.

KULIM: Literally translated, Padang Serai, the name of a town located in Kedah’s southern district of Kulim, means “field of lemongrass”.

The parliamentary constituency’s lemongrass leaves may now be ruffled in the lead up to the 14th general election (GE14) with the local division of PKR insisting that the party field a local candidate.

Its chief, M Karupaiya, said current MP N Surendran, a practising lawyer who was born in Kuantan and raised in Alor Setar, had done well in serving the constituents.

“He is a good man. But he has a lot of work as a lawyer, which is why we need someone local.”

He said constituents had given feedback that they would rather have a representative who could be around most of the time.

“We do not want outsiders to come to Padang Serai. We have already seen that in the last election. We want a local candidate,” Karupaiya told FMT.

He said the division had submitted its choice for candidate to the party leadership.

He said the candidate would be better able to understand the local community’s problems and the people could identify with such a local person.

“Our constituents are of the view that the candidate must be around for any functions such as temple prayers and other events. If it is an outsider, we will have a problem,” he said.

Karupaiya also said it was up to the party leadership to decide on the matter.

He said the party was confident of retaining Padang Serai regardless of who its next candidate is.

“This is because we have been doing our job on the ground for the past four years. We are very close to the people.”

The parliamentary constituency is also the only one in Kedah to be held by an Indian from Pakatan Harapan (PH).

The sleepy hollow is surrounded by oil palm plantations and the Kulim Hi-Tech Park, where a number of international electronic firms have set up plants.

Padang Serai MP N Surendran (right) chatting with some kampung folk in his constituency.

Urban residents make up about 60% of the population, due in part to a mushrooming of new housing estates.

The 74,000 voters are made up of 56% Malays, 23% Indians and 12% Chinese.

The seat was held by MCA after its creation in 1974 but changed hands after the 2008 general election.

The Barisan Nasional (BN) party’s Lim Bee Kau was MP for two terms, after defeated PKR’s Saifuddin Nasution Ismail in the 1999 and 2004 elections.

PKR’s N Gobalakrishnan then wrested the seat by brushing aside MCA’s Boey Chin Gan by a margin of 11,738 votes in 2008. Gobalakrishnan, however, quit the party in January 2011.

PKR vice-president Surendran was then brought in to contest for PKR in the election of May 2013, emerging victorious against Gobalakrishnan and three others. Gobalakrishan, who stood as an independent, garnered only 390 votes.

Federal allocations denied to Surendran

Kedah Menteri Besar Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah, the state’s Umno chief, had recently claimed that Surendran had not done anything to bring positive changes to the constituency.

Speaking to FMT, Surendran dismissed Bashah’s claim as typical election talk.

“As the opposition, our job is put forward the people’s problems to the BN government and pressure them to remedy the situation. This, we have consistently done.

“It is the BN state government that has the power to bring greater prosperity to the people of Padang Serai and Kedah but it has failed to do this miserably.”

He alleged that the BN federal government had denied allocations to opposition MPs like himself.

Surendran also said Bashah’s claim that his constituents only saw him once in five years was a lie, stating that he had been active on the ground since 2011.

He said he had consistently exerted pressure for more aid to be given to the poor in Padang Serai through the Welfare Department, but his appeals had fallen on deaf ears.

“Padang Serai, and Kedah, need a government that will dedicate itself to bring much-needed development. That will not happen under BN rule,” he said, expressing confidence that Pakatan Harapan will sweep the state in GE14. -FMT