JOHOR BARU: Johor Perikatan Nasional has dismissed talks of businessman JR Deepak Jaikishan being dropped from its candidate line-up for the upcoming polls.
State Perikatan election director Rasman Ithnain said that Deepak will remain as the candidate for the Pulai seat under Gerakan.
"There has never been any discussion to replace the Pulai candidate or any other candidates.
"These are all rumours. In fact, I have not even heard of this before.
"As of now, Deepak is still the candidate for Pulai," he told reporters at the Johor Perikatan headquarters here on Thursday (Nov 3).
He said this when asked whether Deepak will remain as its candidate for Pulai.
Rasman noted that all 26 Johor Perikatan candidates have been confirmed and that there will not be any changes.
However, a source from Gerakan said that Deepak may still be replaced with another candidate.
"Currently, our party president Datuk Dr Dominic Lau is in discussion with Perikatan chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin about the candidacy of Deepak.
"It is very likely for him to be replaced with another candidate," he said.
Talks are rife that Perikatan will not be fielding Deepak in the 15th General Election (GE15), despite his candidacy announced on Tuesday (Nov 1) night.
Earlier, Johor Gerakan chairman Datuk Teo Kok Chee said that its party president has put someone else to contest for Gerakan under the Perikatan banner in Pulai.
“It will be a local candidate. The decision to change our candidate was made soon after the announcement of Perikatan candidates by Muhyiddin on Tuesday night.
“We were not informed about his (Deepak) candidacy as all matters have been decided by the Perikatan central leadership prior to the announcement,” he told The Star on Wednesday (Nov 2).
Deepak, who owns a carpet business, became a well-known figure in local politics after claiming both Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor were involved in the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.
He had also sued Najib and Rosmah over an alleged conspiracy that he claimed led to him suffering losses.
However, his case was thrown out by the Court of Appeal on Oct 8.
On a separate matter, Rasman also said Perikatan has not received any new applications from hopeful candidates from other parties, who wanted to contest under the Perikatan banner.
"So far, we have not received such an application. Even if there are such requests, there are no seats for us to offer them, as we already have candidates for all 26 parliamentary constituencies.
"However, we will leave it to the central leadership to decide if we come across such a situation," he said.
He noted that of the 26 candidates from Perikatan, 16 are from Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, four from its associate wing, four from PAS and two from Gerakan.
