For the first time, he has incorporated his famous tiger trademark into his election campaign by having his campaign vehicles emblazoned with his image beside the image of a tiger.The 72-year-old lawyer, who earned the nickname following a dispute with former MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu in Parlia-ment in 1982, said he was sure the tiger would bring good luck to him and Pakatan Rakyat.
He also did not mind retelling the story behind the nickname to reporters during a meeting-the- people session at the market in Jalan Gangsa yesterday.
“During an argument with Samy Vellu, he called himself a lion while he called me a tiger.
“But I’m a lion as Singh means lion in Punjabi. And lion is ‘singa’ in Bahasa Malaysia,” he added.
“But then I said to him: ‘Never mind, you be the lion and I’ll be the tiger. There are no lions in the country.
“So the name started from there,” he said with a chuckle.
Karpal Singh, who is defending his Bukit Gelugor parliamentary seat, said a supporter, S. Mahendran, had taken the campaign vehicles — a multi-purpose vehicle and a jeep — to the shop to have the images pasted on them.
He added that he would ensure that tigers, an endangered species, would be protected as any attack on a tiger was an attack on him.
“The vehicles bearing the tiger images received a positive response from the public who would take photographs of them,” he said.
He has also called himself the ‘Tiger General’ in Bukit Gelugor which he said was the only constituency in the country to have four lawyers in the parliamentary and state seats.
“Four lawyers — we are like ge-nerals. And I am the ‘Tiger General’,” he said.
DAP candidates for the three state seats are incumbents R.S.N. Rayer (Seri Delima), Wong Hon Wai (Air Itam) and Yeoh Soon Hin (Paya Terubong).
Karpal Singh won the Jelutong parliamentary seat in 1978 and held the seat for more than 20 years until losing it in 1999.
The Bukit Gelugor constituency was once part of the Jelutong parliamentary constituency until the mid-1990s.
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