Murali Pillai

Personal life and education

K. Muralidharan Pillai was born on 30 October 1967 in Singapore. His father, P.K. Pillai, was a unionist detained during Operation Coldstore in 1963. The elder Pillai died in 2007. Pillai has been married to his educator wife, N. Gowri, for more than 20 years in 2016. The couple have twin sons and two daughters.

For his early education, Pillai studied at Monk's Hill Primary School, then Monk's Hill Secondary School and then Hwa Chong Junior College. For his tertiary education, he studied in the National University of Singapore (NUS) where he first attained a law degree with honours and then did his masters in law. He also holds a double masters in business administration in NUS and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Pillai played hockey as a student and represented his school, while he was also once the President of Raffles Hall in NUS.

Police and legal career

Presumably during his initial period of national service in Singapore as a Full Time National Serviceman, Pillai rose to the role of a platoon commander for the 2nd Guards Battalion of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) At some point in time, Pillai joined the Singapore Police Force (SPF), where he attained the position of Assistant Superintendent, and primarily conducted investigations into white-collar crimes. As an Operationally-Ready National Serviceman, he still holds the rank of Deputy Superintendent (NS) in the SPF.

After his work with the police, Pillai was called to the bar in 1996. He is currently the head of commercial litigation at Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP.

Pillai was notable as the lawyer for former MP of People's Action Party (PAP) Choo Wee Khiang, who was acquitted of corruption charges in 2014.

Political career

A member of the People's Action Party (PAP) since 2001, Pillai served from 2007 to 2011 as the branch secretary at PAP's Bukit Batok branch.

Then, Pillai served as the branch chairman of PAP's Paya Lebar branch from May 2012 to (March or April) 2016. He contested in the 2015 Singaporean general election in a team of five for the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency. Although the PAP team was ahead by around 300 votes in Pillai's ward of Paya Lebar within Aljunied, overall the PAP team scored 49.05% of the vote in Aljunied in a loss to the team from the Worker's Party (WP), which scored 50.95%.

On 12 March 2016, the PAP Member of Parliament for the Bukit Batok Single Member Constituency, David Ong, resigned citing a "personal indiscretion". When the PAP announced on 21 March that Pillai would be their representative for the 2016 Bukit Batok by-election, Pillai was appointed branch chairman of PAP's Bukit Batok branch. Pillai was formally nominated as a candidate on 27 April, the only other nominated candidate being Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP).

2016 Election Campaign

During his campaign, Pillai chose the Mandarin nickname of 'Ah Mu'.

He pledged that if he won, he would upgrade infrastructure around Blocks 140 to 149 of the SMC, which would cost $1.9 million. Pillai later clarified that this potential $1.9 million project is "part of" the $23.6 million masterplan announced by David Ong during the 2015 general election.

2016 Election Manifesto

Pillai's campaign manifesto for Bukit Batok focused on three domains: jobs, social mobility and the elderly.

In the jobs domain, he proposed a program to help the unemployed find jobs faster, "leveraging on community contacts within the pool of community volunteers and Bukit Batok residents, and also [his] own business contacts" to help residents secure jobs.

For the social mobility domain, Pillai proposed a program where volunteers would "inspire children from low-income families to aim high to succeed in life", with the hope that this volunteer youth mentorship program would eventually be accessible to all residents and be introduced in schools.

For the domain of the elderly, there were at least three programs proposed: firstly, a 'health cooperative' would be implemented to help "sandwiched families" by increasing medical literacy and subsidizing consumables for the elderly.

Secondly, Pillai also proposed an "emergency button scheme" for "elderly living alone" to alert "neighbours or community volunteers" of a need for help.

Thirdly, Pillai said setting up a new "eldercare centre will help provide more therapy services and daycare services".

Finally, Pillai said that if he were elected as a Member of Parliament, he would raise the issues of tightening the criteria for receiving employment passes and fighting for higher Eldershield insurance payouts for the disabled.

2016 Election Result

On 7 May 2016, Pillai secured 61.21% of the votes to win the Bukit Batok by-election on Polling Day and was sworn into parliament on 9 May 2016.