 On his invitation, she visited Malaya in 1954 and despite the ongoing communist insurgency, visited Sungai Siput where she officially opened the Mahatma Gandhi Tamil School.The meeting between Sambanthan and Vijaya Lakshmi in 1954 helped push the former into the limelight and then on to the party president's position in 1955

In the same year, he was elected member of the legislative council for the Kinta Utara constituency.The constituency was renamed in 1959 as the Sungai Siput seat.