In 1981, he became party vice-president, commanding strong grassroots support from the Malaysian Indian community.
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However, he was issued a show cause letter on June 2, 1988, for alleging that the party leadership had failed to fight for the rights of the Malaysian Indian community and for allegedly practising caste-oriented politics.
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Evening Is the Whole Day focuses on the dark secrets of an affluent Malaysian Indian family (also living in Ipoh), and has been praised for its lyrical, inventive language, often using untranslated Tamil words, and using aspects of Bahasa syntax, such as reduplicatives as intensifiers.
In 2005, Sothinathan was temporarily suspended for his criticism of the Barisan Nasional government during parliamentary debate when he got up to argue the fate of many Malaysian Indian medical students in Ukraine who were left stranded when their university was derecognized by the Government of Malaysia.
The Melaka government also was criticized for awarding the Datuk title to a non-Malaysian Indian actor, Shahrukh Khan, for making movies in the state.
Shantona is of Malaysian Indian descent and classically trained in the Indian dance forms Odissi and Bharata Natyam.