Palanivel ousts three after ‘illegal’ meeting

More turmoil in MIC as president challenges registrar's orders

KUALA LUMPUR: MIC president G Palanivel, embroiled in a dispute with the Registrar of Societies, has suspended three party officers for allegedly convening an illegal meeting at the party’s headquarters on Friday.

The three men are Sakthivel Alagappan, Datuk Jaspal Singh and Mogan Velayatham, who were secretary-general, treasurer-general and information officer respectively in the party’s 2009 central working committee.

Last week Palanivel had named an interim working committee, from members of the 2009 committee, to work on holding fresh party elections as ordered by the Registrar.

However, the three men (whom he had not named in the interim committee) had held their meeting despite the letter issued to Sakthivel on Thursday to cancel the gathering.

He said “the acts of these individuals are clearly detrimental to the interests of the MIC” and he has suspended their memberships for a year, under the party president’s executive powers.

On Friday, Palanivel had challenged the Registrar to withdraw all his directives to the party since December and demanded that the Registrar abide by the proposals he had recently submitted.

Last week, Palanivel had appointed Datuk S. Sothinathan, Datuk S.Murugesan and L.Sivasubramaniam as secretary-general, treasurer-general and information officer respectively, again using presidential prerogatives.

The secretary-general’s post has been filled by four people since May 2014: A.Sakthivel in May, A.Prakash Rao in December, Datuk Kumar Silambaram in early January and Datuk S.Sothinathan last Monday.