Friday, April 27, 2007

Ijok

Ijok goes to the polls tomorrow, so when my good friend Alex Thiagarasan rang me yesterday to invite me to join him on a visit to Ijok this morning, I thought it was a good opportunity not to be missed. Alex, a businessman and a Klang Town Councillor is also the head of the Klang division of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC). I thought this would give me the rare chance of observing up close and personal the well-oiled Barisan Nasional election machinery at work.

Ijok, a one horse town in Selangor was indeed gripped by the by-election fever with flags, posters and buntings everywhere. There was a carnival atmosphere but security was tight with many police road blocks. However, despite the fact that our car had a Klang Town Councillor's official crest, we were stopped at the very first road block into town, only to be told that it was all OK and to proceed.


At Coalfield, with Alex (in dark glasses) and YB Devamany

Our first stop was at the MIC Ladang Coalfield's Pusat Gerakan or operations center where we met its head Y.B. En. S.K. Devamany, who is the Barisan Nasional MP for Cameron Highlands. Having read about it in blogs, I wasn't really surprised to see the newly tarred roads leading into the estate right up to the workers' brightly painted living quarters. I did wonder whether taxpayers money was used to pave what obviously were private roads.


"Vicky" and me

On our way back, we stopped in Batang Berjuntai (!) to have a quick chicken curry lunch with Y.B. En. S. A. Vigneswaran a.k.a. "Vicky", parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Youth and Sports who is also the national head of MIC Youth. When he was a young boy, Vicky's family and mine were neighbours staying just a couple of doors away in Jalan Seroja, Port Klang. This was in the mid 70's when I first started my career with the port.

8 comments:

  1. Waaah Cap'n, you've gone "on the ground" already. Too bad I'm holed up in a swamp away from all the excitement. This isn't a subtle endorsement of BN, is it Sir? Ha ha but thanks for your personal take on Ijok, Cap'n.

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  2. Hi Mat,

    No endorsement and no intention to compete with our so-po journo friends either.

    But at my age, I do try not to make any more enemies ... haha.

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  3. Aye-aye cap'n! Chicken curry is my favourite!
    This is a great blog you've got here. You're still on my "Best blog" links, you know.

    All the best to you
    from
    Gledwood

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  4. Many thanks, Gledwood.

    Whatsit like, hot enough for you in sunny London town?

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  5. Captain, time to deliver promises. We will be watching and blogging.Cheers.

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  6. Si, muy bien Don Zorro.

    See you Tuesday for post mortem?

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  7. Whoa Cap'n, this coming Tuesday will be the mother-of-all Mee Rebus sessions - too bad I can't be there. But please update for the benefit of swamp dwellers like me will you? Thanks, sir.

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  8. Hi Mat,

    Went to Section 14 today but the place was closed becos of the holiday I think. Next week maybe.

    ReplyDelete

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