‘Four Indian ministers’: Keep your word, Pakatan told

The Human Rights Party wants Pakatan Rakyat to come out and say four Indian ministers will be in the Cabinet if it captures Putrajaya.

PETALING JAYA: The Human Rights Party (HRP) has dared Pakatan Rakyat to announce that it would appoint four Indian ministers, including an Indian deputy prime minister, in the Cabinet if and when it comes into power.

P Uthayakumar, the pro-tem secretary-general of the Indian-based political party, was referring to the recent statement by PKR’s Selangor state executive councillor Dr Xavier Jeyakumar that Pakatan would appoint four Indian Cabinet ministers when it becomes the ruling government.

Yesterday, MIC scoffed at Jeyakumar’s statement, calling it an “empty promise”. Its secretary-general S Murugesan said that Pakatan would definitely not appoint four federal ministers because even Selangor now has only one Indian state executive councillor.

Uthayakumar wants Pakatan to honour Jeyakumar’s statement and that PKR supremo Anwar Ibrahim, DAP’s veteran Lim Kit Siang and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang should bravely come out and say that there will be four Indian ministers if Pakatan forms the government.

Uthayakumar said HRP does not want third rate ministerial posts but the “empowered” positions such as a deputy prime minister, home minister, finance minister or education minister.

Uthayakumar said the Indian ministers should also be in charge of the Implementation and Coordinating Unit (ICU), Central Coordinating Unit (CCU) and the Economic Planning Unit (EPU).

He pointed out that Singapore also has four Indian ministers, namely Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam (also Finance and Manpower Minister), Environment and Water Resources Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs S Iswaran.

“Only empowered Malaysian Indian ministers who are allowed by the top leadership of PKR, DAP and PAS to discharge their duties without fear or favour can undo the injustices done to the Indian poor over the last 54 years,” said Uthayakumar.

They could also end all “Umno acts of racism and religious supremacy”, which he said targeted the Indian poor.

Uthayakumar said having Indian Cabinet ministers would help the poor Indians who have long been denied petty trading business licences and business opportunities, and bank loans.

“This is necessary because in the last 54 years the Indian poor have been denied the 442,000 ten-acre land ownership schemes for agricultural industries,” he said.