P.140
Segamat (13th General Election on May 5, 2013)
46,262 (20,093/43.43% Malays;
21,393/46.24% Chinese; 4,641/10.03% Indians)
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Minister vs Ex-Minister in Segamat
Minister vs Ex-Minister in Segamat
Chua (centre) leading the PR’s march to
the nomination centre for P.140 Segamat.
SEGAMAT (April 20, 20113): A Barisan
Nasional (BN) Minister and an Ex-Minister will slug it out for the P.140
Segamat parliamentary seat on the May 5 national polls.
Former
Health Minister Chua Jui Meng is locked in a straight fight with BN caretaker
Human Resources Minister Dr S.Subramaniam.
Chua,
the underdog in the electoral battle against the mean BN machinery, will have
to work doubly hard to wrest the seat from BN and create history.
Segamat
has never fallen to the Opposition in the past 55 years in electoral history.
Returning
officer Ismail Abu announced the confirmation of the two candidates vying for
P.140 at 11am sharp in Majlis Daerah Segamat’s Dewan Jubli Intan Sultan
Ibrahim.
Chua’s back in his campaign trail
immediately upon confirmation of his candidacy for P.140 Segamat.
With
much ground to work on for a victory, Chua left the nomination centre and
headed straight for a campaign trail that ended at 11pm.
He
spent two and a half hours walking in and out of shophouses in Batu Anam’s
Taman Bintang and Pekan Gemas. It included a lunch with his entourage of Indian
election volunteers and supporters.
Taman Anggerik’s majority Indian residents
give Chu a warm welcome.
After
lunch at 3pm, Chua and his entourage conducted house-to-house campaigning under
the blistering sun in Taman Anggerik.
Surprisingly,
the majority Indian residents gave Chua a warm response.
Despite
the area being a BN-MIC stronghold, the Indian families unlocked their gates to
exchange handshakes with Chua.
The
election campaign entourage then returned to the Taman KSM PKR Bilik Gerakan at
4.20pm where Chua held a 20-minute informal meeting where PKR, PAS and ABU
(Anything But Umno political activist) discussed campaign strategies and
operations.
At
4.40pm, Chua again went on a walkabout in Taman Sri Alam 1 and Taman Desa
India.
One
Indian woman in her 20s even rushed into her room to change her 1Malaysia T-shirt
to greet Chua.
She
told Chua that she was excited to meet him and that she never dreamt that she
would have the opportunity to be up and close with the former Health Minister.
After
two hours, Chua and his campaign team headed for another round of walkabout in
the Segamat Pasar Malam at 7pm.
Chua
and Subramaniam’s entourage then crossed each other’s path to the bemusement of
night market stallholders and the public.
However,
both sides remained cool and cordial. Chua had on April 13 conducted a similar
walkabout in the same night market.
At
9pm, Chua was in Pekan Jabi for a short ceramah
to help PKR’s P.141 Sekijang candidate Julailey Jemadi’s campaigning. Julailey
is PKR Youth secretary.
Prior
to the ceramah, Chua, Julailey and
other supporters raised a giant bamboo flag pole.
Two
lines of firecrackers were lit to the delight of the villagers who turned up
for the ceramah and to meet Julailey.
Chua
and his party members and supporters then had a late dinner that ended at 10.30pm.
Chua
will be on another day and night-long campaign trail, starting at 7.30am in Jementah’s
wet market.
Here’s
more pictures on Chua’s campaign trail for the day and night: