Ramasamy Palanisamy

Professor Dr. P. Ramasamy s/o Palanisamy (; born 10 May 1949) is a Malaysian politician who served as the Deputy Chief Minister of Penang II and Member of the Penang State Executive Council (EXCO) in the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and Pakatan Harapan (PH) state administrations under Chief Ministers Lim Guan Eng and Chow Kon Yeow and Member of the Penang State Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Perai from March 2008 to August 2023. He also served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Batu Kawan from March 2008 to May 2013. He is a member of the United for the Rights of Malaysians Party (URIMAI). He has served as the founding Chairman of URIMAI since September 2023. He was a member of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a component party of the PH and formerly PR coalitions. His vocal opinions on Zakir Naik, support for the Hindu Nationalism policies in India under Narendra Modi regime and call for reforms of the civil service in Malaysia due to its Malay dominance have been controversial.

Ramasamy was elected to the Malaysian Parliament and Penang State Legislative Assembly in the 2008 election, defeating former Penang Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon. He became Deputy Chief Minister of Penang after the election, serving under the new Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, making him the first person of Indian origin to hold the post of deputy chief minister in any Malaysian state.

In 2023, Ramasamy left DAP over dissatisfaction of not being nominated by the party to contest in the Penang state election and differences with party leaders and founded the Indian-focused URIMAI.

Before entering politics, Ramasamy was a professor at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), from which he officially retired in May 2005. He later took up teaching positions in Germany and Singapore.

After being dropped as candidate to defend his Perai seat for the 2023 Penang state election, Ramasamy quit DAP on 10 August 2023, citing the actions of certain party leaders as the reason of his party resignation.

Controversies Zakir Naik On 10 April 2016, P Ramasamy, called prominent Islamic preacher Dr. Zakir Naik as "satan", he wrote in his Facebook post "Let us get ‘satan’ Zakir Naik out of this country!".

On 2 November 2023, the High Court has ordered P Ramasamy to pay RM 1.5 Million in libel to Zakir Naik as the judgement for the same case.

India's Hindu Nationalism policies under Narendra Modi During October 2019, on the internationally objected event of the military lockdown of Kashmir (region in India known for military excesses) during Jammu and Kashmir reorganization, P Ramasamy criticized the then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir for expressing his concern at the United Nations to restore the human rights situation in Kashmir. On the one year anniversary of Kashmir's special status revocation, Mahathir stated that as he was no longer the premier, he could "speak without restrain and address the Kashmir issue", noting the backlash his previous statements had caused; Offering no apology for his criticism, Mahathir added that "keeping quiet is not an option when all the telltale signs were pointing towards another situation whereby a big and powerful country imposed its will with impunity on a small and defenseless nation."

During December 2019, despite global condemnation by many leaders and human rights organizations on India's Citizenship Amendment Act (designed for addressing the bordering Muslim majority countries only), the detention camp deaths due to NRC and the deaths during the protests against the Act; P Ramasamy had a series of articles defending the requirement of the Act and had TV appearances in Indian media criticizing Mahathir for commenting on the India's Citizenship Amendment Act and the deaths caused (during protests and in detention camp for lack of ancestral documents

Election results

+ Penang State Legislative Assembly YearConstituencyCandidateVotesPctOpponent(s)VotesPctBallots castMajorityTurnout 2008 N16 Perai (DAP)7,668 71.99%Krishnan Letchumanan (MIC)2,59024.32%10,651 5,17675.14% Ulaganathan a/l KAP Ramasamy (IND) 311 2.92% 2013 (DAP)10,549 78.29%Krishnan Letchumanan (MIC)2,59019.22%13,4747,95983.90% Muhammad Ridhwan Sulaiman (IND) 1841.37%2018 (DAP)11,24382.50%Suresh Muniandy (MIC)2,19416.10%13,8199,04981.10%Patrick Ooi Khar Giap (PFP)1040.80%Samuganathan Muniandy (PRM)370.20%Asoghan Govindaraju (PAP)330.20%Kumary Retnam (IND)230.20%