MIC slams PKR leader for ‘exaggeration’

N Surendran's claim that 300,000 Indian Malaysians have no birth certificates or MyKads has drawn flak from MIC.

KUALA LUMPUR: MIC has taken PKR vice-president N Surendran to task for claiming that there are about 300,000 Malaysian Indians without birth certificates and identity cards.

Calling it a gross exaggeration, the party’s welfare and social bureau deputy chairman R Ramanan said the opposition politician should have known better.

“Being a lawyer, Surendran should be able to differentiate between fact and fiction,” he added in a statement to FMT.

He also asked the PKR leader why he did not bring these people forward during the government’s MyDaftar campaign.

The campaign was launched to look into the cases of Indian Malaysians without birth certificates, MyKads and those holding red identity cards, meant for permanent residents.

Ramanan said that Surendran’s action showed that it was PKR’s tactic to drum up baseless allegations.

“It is either the policy or strategy of PKR leaders to frabricate facts, and then make mountains out of molehills to win votes in the coming general election,” he added.

Yesterday, Surendran led a protest outside the Parliament’s gates, demanding that the government identify the 300,000 and promptly issue them MyKads, or face nationwide protests in the future.

“We are here peacefully because we have a crisis, where more than 300,000 people have not been given their documents such as birth certificates and blue ICs.

“They are suffering because they do not have access to education, jobs, medicine or have the right to claim Socso or Employee Provident Fund (EPF) benefits,” he had said.

He added that if the government could grant immigrants in Sabah citizenship, they could do the same for Malaysian-born Indians.