The seat is now held by deputy education minister P Kamalanathan who won it in a by-election in 2010 and successfully retained it in the 2013 general election.

Nadzari said the proposal to take back the seat was raised by the division’s Youth and Wanita wings at their recent delegates’ meetings.

“The seat was contested by Umno originally, and then handed to Barisan Nasional (BN) components, MCA and MIC, in rotation,” he told FMT.

Nadzari, who is the BN coordinator for opposition-held Selangor, said the proposal was made since the constituency was Malay-majority and the current voting trend would favour a candidate from Malay-based Umno.

“We feel that the time has come to surrender the seat back to Umno. However, we need to respect the consensus method of negotiation practised by BN,” he added.

Nadzari said the Umno divisional delegates did not question the performance of Kamalanathan as the MP and no delegate at the Youth and Wanita meetings spoke bad about him.