He was responding to a report in which youth and sports minister Ahmad Faizal Azumu called Indian voters “kingmakers” as they made up 11% of the electorate. The Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate is defending the seat he won in the 2018 general election (GE14).

“To me, it’s not the Indian voters alone. It is all non-Malay voters, both Chinese and Indian who will make the difference. It will depend on which side they lean on,” Aminuddin told FMT.

“Normally (prior to GE14), we could get about 75% of the Indian votes and 40% of the Chinese votes. But in GE14, we probably only managed to get 35% of the Indian votes and 15% of the Chinese votes.”

After having experienced life under the Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional-led governments, Aminuddin said he believed non-Malay voters could evaluate which coalition actually served them best.

“Our background is being service-oriented community leaders. When we were in power, we did a lot of things on the ground.

“Even when we weren’t in the government, people still looked to us for assistance whenever they needed it.”

He added that the people could see that BN leaders were the kind “who will be there for you”.

“This time around, they have all the options. They can go back to BN with all its credentials for the past 60 years and they can have a look at what PH did when it got into power.

“Despite all the promises that they made, when they got the power, to be frank, they didn’t walk the talk,” the Perak Umno secretary said.

Aminuddin is in a four-cornered fight for the Tambun seat. He faces Faizal, Anwar Ibrahim of Pakatan Harapan, and Abdul Rahim Tahir (Pejuang).