MIC not willing to be renamed

The Star

BY LOH FOON FONG

PUTRAJAYA: MIC is not willing to be renamed if it is to merge with other Indian-based parties, says Deputy MIC president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam.

He said although the party was willing to consider a merger with these parties, calling MIC by a different name was not an option.

“One of the challenges is that some of the other parties don’t want to lose their identities and they also have their own demands.

“But if there is openness, we are quite prepared (to consider),” he said after launching the Malaysia Health System in Transition (HiT) Country Report yesterday.

On some of the parties asking for a new party to be set up and not combined with MIC, Dr Subramaniam said that MIC would not “close shop”.

“The original idea was to have the parties merge with MIC, but some of them wanted to maintain their identities,” he said.

Moreover, he said that some of them wanted to maintain their positions and posts, but this would depend on MIC’s ability to accommodate the request, he said.

On whether MIC was prepared for structural changes, he said this would have to be discussed “but for us to call it a different name, that is not possible”.

On Sunday, Barisan Nasional secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor urged all Indian-based political parties under the coalition to merge into one entity in the best interests of the Malaysian Indian community.

He said it was pointless for the parties to compete with each other when they could be better off working together.

Tengku Adnan urged MIC, Makkal Sakti, Malaysian Indian United Party (MIUP), Indian Progressive Front (IPF) and the PPP to merge so that they could become a stronger entity.