MIC is ready to welcome back all its members from a different camp in order to strengthen the party ahead of the coming 14th general election (GE14).

Party president Dr S Subramaniam said now that the party was focusing on the next general election, all its members needed to be fully united.

He said the party had opened up the process of welcoming those members who were previously from a different camp.

"In fact, some of them are already back and in Penang, about 20-odd branches of MIC are willing to return and we welcome them in order to strengthen the party," he told reporters after the Penang MIC annual meeting in conjunction with its 70th anniversary in Butterworth today.

Subramaniam, who is also health minister, was commenting on rumours that MIC members from a different camp intended to return to the party fold as reported in the media lately.

MIC had split into two factions following differences of opinion between Subramaniam and former party president G Palanivel after the Registrar of Societies (ROS) issued a notice on Dec 5, 2014 asking the party to hold fresh elections.

The crisis caused Palanivel to automatically lose his MIC membership and some of his loyalists do not want to join the party under the leadership of Subramaniam until today.

However, Subramaniam said Penang MIC was focusing on winning back two state seats, Prai and Bagan Dalam.

"Our election machinery is preparing to win back the seats secured by us prior to 2008 and we will ensure that in the GE14, Prai and Bagan Dalam will be ours," he said.

He added that the party was also studying the possibility of swapping seats with other BN component parties.

"The initial discussion has been going on with the other BN component parties to swap seats to ensure BN will win the GE14, but nothing is confirmed yet," he said.

- Bernama