By IANS,
Kuala Lumpur : The Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), which has traditionally represented the Indian community here, wants to attract more Telugus, Malayalees and Sri Lankans in its fold as part of the organisation’s revamp.
It has been dominated by the Tamils, who form a bulk of the estimated 2.6 million community of Malaysian Indians who settled here during the British era.
The current number of Telugu, Malayalee and Sri Lankan members in the party was still small, MIC chief S. Samy Vellu was quoted as saying Thursday in The Star newspaper.
“We want to harness their capabilities,” he said, adding that they would be allowed to set up their own branches.
The youth wing and other front organisations of the MIC, he said, will no longer be working under the main party’s branches following a revamp undertaken in the wake of the poll debacle in March.
Vellu hoped this would end the current arrangement wherein a branch chairman would end up choosing family members to helm the respective wings.
“All this nonsense must go,” he was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper in Ipoh, capital of Perak state.
“This is to give them greater independence,” said Vellu.