IPOH, November 2 — Perak MIC chairman Datuk V. Elango and Ipoh City councillor S. Jayagopi were among the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidates for the four remaining state seats in Perak.

Perak BN chairman and caretaker mentri besar Datuk Seri Saarani Mohamad said Elango will contest the Sungkai state seat while Jayagopi, the Ipoh Barat MIC chief, will contest in Buntong.

"Meanwhile, the Aulong seat will be contested by MIC state secretary G. Shanmugiavallo and Jelapang will be contested by Hamidah Muhamad from Makkal Sakthi,” he said in a statement.

MIC is a BN component while Makkal Sakthi is a non-member but included as part of an informal group dubbed "friends of BN”.

Previously, Aulong was contested by Gerakan while Jelapang, Sungkai and Buntong were contested by MIC on the BN ticket.

Gerakan was part of the former ruling coalition but left after its 2018 general election defeat, and has since entered Perikatan Nasional.

Earlier, Saarani did not name the candidates for these four state seats after the unveiling the coalition’s hopefuls in Perak for the 15th general election.

Saarani said that the BN component parties are having a meeting to finalise the candidates for the remaining seats.

Yesterday, MIC leaders snubbed the BN event in Kuala Lumpur to unveil the coalition’s candidates, sparking rumours that the party could boycott GE15 over the decision to allocate some seats to the "friends of BN”.

Officially, BN operates on a consensus basis, in which all components must agree before the coalition makes any decision.