‘Do not belittle intelligence of Indians’

Najib asks the Indian community not to fall for the lies of Pakatan Rakyat.

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak launched a stinging attack against the opposition today, saying that the opposition pact, made up of DAP, PKR and PAS, was trying to cheat the people, especially the Malaysian Indian community.

“They say that there are 300,000 Indians in the country who do not have any documents… 300,000 stateless Indians they say. This is a lie. There are only 9,000 Indians who do not have documents.

“Out of this 9,000 people, we have sorted out 4,500 applications for documents. Another 2,000 applications are still being processed. The registration is open. If there are any Indians without documents, they can walk in and apply to get their citizenship.

“With all this going on, they (the opposition) can cheat that some 300,000 Indians are stateless. This is belittling the intelligence of Indians in the country. You can fool some people some time, but not all the people all the time,” he told some 3,500 people at the opening of 66th MIC annual general assembly here.

He said the opposition had promised that the 300,000 stateless people would be given citizenship within one month after Pakatan Rakyat takes power of the federal government.

“This means, they will process, 10,000 applications in a day and grant citizenship to 10,000 so called stateless Indians daily for a month. This is really belittling the intelligence of Malaysian Indians… can this be achieved…this is another lie,” Najib added.

Pakatan demolished seven temples
He said when the opposition started governing four states in the country after the 2008 general election, they promised not to demolish any Hindu temples or shrines but this changed soon after.

“In the last four years the Barisan Nasional never demolished any temple but in the last four years how many temples or shrines did Pakatan Rakyat demolish… seven, seven to be exact.

“The latest is a private shrine built outside a house in Sepang. The Indian community must fight for its right. MIC must repair the altar…if they break again, then we repair again.

“The opposition promise something but do something else. Just empty promises but our promise is a promise fulfilled. They cheat a lot with their empty promises,” he added.

He said the government acknowledges that more needs to be done for the Malaysian Indian community for it to be on par with other major races in the country.

“In the 11th general election (2004) the BN had its fixed deposit in the Indian voters but in the 12th general election, the Indian fixed deposit moved from the BN bank to the opposition bank.

“We lost four states and two thirds majority partly due to the absence of Indian votes. Although we have  made some mistakes in the past, we have done a lot for the community. We will continue doing more for Indians in the future.

“Maybe our interest rates were not good in 2008 for the Indian fixed deposit votes but over the last three years, I have raised the interest rates and they are making a comeback to the BN bank. The confidence on the BN government is back,” said Najib, who is also Umno president.