It is said that a prominent businessman linked to Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has set his sights on the Nesa president post.
(FMT) - If the plan hatched by a group of Indian opposition leaders becomes a reality, then one of the largest Indian-based cooperatives in the country, NESA Cooperative Society Bhd, will be taken over by PKR.
The aim is to convert Nesa into the economic vehicle for PKR’s Indian members, with the support of the Selangor state government.
NESA has more than 40,000 members with some 20,000 of them considered to be active, with more than RM500 as their share capital.
The cooperative was formed by former MIC president S Manickavasagam in the 70s as one of MIC’s self-initiated economic programmes for its members. Upon his death, the Nesa top post went to S Subramanim, the former MIC number two.
Since Subramaniam’s current health condition is not permitting him to play an active role in NESA, some of the senior directors led by its current secretary and chief executive officer (CEO) R Rajannan, are said to be in support of ‘Oms’ Thiagarajan taking over the leadership.
Thiagarajan is a prominent businessman and philanthropist from Klang who is well known in the Indian community for helping Tamil schools. He acquired the title ‘Oms’ in his name since he runs a group of companies under the Oms banner.
He is a strong supporter of PKR and its leader Anwar Ibrahim.
On May 26, Thiagarajan celebrated his birthday in a grand manner at a leading hotel in Subang Jaya and the function was attended by Anwar and other opposition leaders.
During his speech, Thiagarajan reiterated his support for Anwar and declared that the latter would be the next prime minister, and that he would celebrate his following birthday with the prime minister.
Thiagarajan was also rumoured to be a possible PKR candidate for a parliament seat in Selangor.
Thiagarajan – next Nesa chief?
The businessman and his key supporters would be contesting for the position of directors at NESA’s annual delegates conference slated for June 30. The other contestants aligned to him are N Rathakrishnan and M Periasamy.
Campaigns had started and the team was said to be touring the country, meeting the 250 or so Nesa delegates.
Rathakrishnan is currently an internal auditor of NESA and the vice-president of PKR Kuala Langat division.
Recently, he made an open declaration that he and his PKR division would work hard to defeat MIC president G Palanivel if the latter contested in the Kuala Langat parliament seat in the next general election.
Meanwhile, Periasamy is the general manager of Tamil daily, Makkal Osai.
Sources familiar with NESA said the scheme to take over the cooperative was being orchestrated by K Saraswathy, a lawyer on Nesa’s panel, together with the cooperative’s CEO Rajannan.
Saraswathy is also the legal advisor for the Oms group of companies.
The lawyer, when speaking at Thiagarajan’s birthday bash, also addressed Anwar as the next prime minister of Malaysia. She too is said to be in the running for a seat under the PKR ticket.
