MP Inderjit to call it quits

Singapore | 25 July 2015 | Asia Samachar |

By Hb Singh

Inderjit Singh, an entrepreneur and a Singapore parliamentarian, is ending his four-term run as a Member of Parliament (MP) when the next general election (GE) is called, widely expected to be held in September.

“I would like to take the opportunity to share that I will be stepping down at the coming GE,” he said in a posting on July 24 on his Facebook page.

The announcement comes on the heel of the release of the republic’s latest electoral boundaries ahead of the next GE which must be held by January 2017.

However, the GE is widely expected in mid-September to capitalise on the various activities planned to celebrate Singapore’s 50 year anniversary, with major celebrations planned around the National Day in August.

“The new Electoral Boundaries for the next GE were announced today and the announcement also sees Kebun Baru, redrawn into Nee Soon GRC from Ang Mo Kio GRC,” said Inderjit in his posting.

GRCs, short for Group Representation Constituencies, is unique to the Singapore political landscape where political parties are required to field a team of between three to six candidates.  At least one candidate in the team must belong to a minority race.

This requirement ensures that parties contesting the elections in GRCs are multi-racial so that minority races will be represented in Parliament, according to information on Parliament of Singapore website.

Inderjit, 55, has been a member of the Ang Mo Kio GRC, led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. For the next GE, there will be 29 electoral divisions, including 16 GRCs, with number of seats in the Parliament to be increased to 89 from 87.

Starting off as a product engineer for Texas Instruments in 1985, he went to become founder/CEOs for Solstar International (Singapore) Pte Ltd and Infiniti Solution Pte Ltd, and executive chairman at Tri Star Electronics Pte Ltd.

Inderjit’s announcement was greeted with comments describing him as outspoken, voice of reason, neutral, daring to speak up and caring.

“Thank you for being an outspoken MP who is not afraid of going against the grain when you felt the need to,” said one Facebook user with the handle Darren Yau.

Gum Ang, whose Facebook profile says that he works at the republic’s Nanyang Technological University, laments that there will be ‘no more neutral voices in parliament’.

“Thank you for being the voice of reason keeping singapore’s interest at heart,” said Faizal Abdul Aziz.

In 2014, Inderjit caught the attention of the nation in a lengthy post on Facebook that “things have become tougher for some middle and low income Singaporeans” over the last three years.

With the electoral boundaries report made public, President Tony Tan can dissolve the current Parliament anytime, after which the GE must be held within three months. In the last GE, the committee’s report was issued on Feb 24, 2011, and Parliament was dissolved on Apr 19, 2011, according to a report at Channel News Asia.

In his message, Inderjit said: “I thank the residents of Kebun Baru and Ang Mo Kio for the support they gave me during this time and for the confidence and trust they placed in me. I did my best to serve and this would not have been possible without my team, the grassroots leaders and branch activists, at Kebun Baru who have become my extended family.”

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