Malaysian party to rope in NGOs to woo Indians

The Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) wants to rope in a network of NGOs to reach out to the Indian community that it hopes to win back after last year's poll setback.

The troubles within the opposition alliance Pakatan Rakyat, that took away thousands of Indian votes in the polls, have encouraged the MIC, the country's largest party of Indians, to take this initiative.

The campaign mounted by MIC president S. Samy Vellu has received encouraging response, especially from Indian NGOs.

"We hope to gather all the Indian NGOs to support the new policies being introduced by Prime Minister Najib Razak's administration," Vellu told Bernama, the official news agency.

In Perak state, the NGOs have formed a consultative council with the MIC to address the various Indian issues with the state government and similar councils were being formed in other states, Vellu was quoted by New Straits Times as saying.

"We are networking with the NGOs because they represent a wide spectrum of people, some who may not want to be aligned to any political parties."

"The NGOs and the MIC will seek solutions to the problems collectively and submit their findings to the federal and state governments for action," Vellu said.

Vellu said the MIC-NGO partnership was a new strategy to woo more Indians to support Barisan Nasional.

"We want every Indian irrespective of his background to join in the decision-making process so that he will feel a sense of belonging and will not feel being left out."

Vellu said he would be touring the country in the next two months to hold meetings with the NGOs.

Last updated on Jul 5^th, 2009 at 17:06 pm IST--IANS