Malaysian Indian Congress, the ethnic Indian political party, today welcomed the appointment of Hindraf's chairman P Waythamoorthy as a deputy minister, saying Prime Minister Najib Razak was giving higher priority to the minority community.
"Waytha had previously made extremely negative accusation at the PM and the ruling coalition of Barisan Nasional, but the very fact that the PM is willing to set aside all this shows that he puts the development of the Indian community above his own feelings," MIC strategic director S Vell Paari said in a statement.
The MIC is a part of the ruling coalition and won four of the nine parliamentary seats it contested in the May 5 general elections.
Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) had backed the opposition parties in the 2008 general polls. However, ahead of the elections this year, Wayathamoorthy said Hindraf would back the ruling coalition, resulting in massive support for ruling coalition by ethnic Indians.
Paari, the son of former MIC supremo Samy Vellu, said that it was a testimony that Najib was committed in his promise to uplift the socio-economic status of the ethnic Indian community which forms nine percent of the population.
Najib announced the post-election cabinet line-up that includes two ministers and four deputy ministers from the minority ethnic Indian community.
Besides MIC president G Palanivel, who was appointed National Resources and Environment Minister, and his deputy Dr S Subramaniam as Health Minster, four others were appointed deputy ministers.
They are M Saravanan (Youth and Sports), P Kamalanathan (Education), Dr J Loga Bala Mohan (Federal Territories) and P Wyathamoorthy (Prime Minister's Department).
"As far as I am concerned, the more Indians holding government posts, the merrier," said Paari, adding that MIC must restructure and revamp the party in terms of ideology, policy and approach to remain relevant to all Malaysians, state-run Bernama news agency said.
