Ramesh Rao now Zahid's Indian affairs special officer

Infamous pro-BN NGO leader Ramesh Rao is now Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's special officer in charge of Indian affairs.

Zahid said Ramesh (above) would be his conduit to serve the Indian community.

"He will be a special officer to tackle problems faced by Indians throughout the country.

"It doesn't matter if you support MIC, PKR, DAP or any of the Friends of BN (parties), what is important is that we must look after all races in this country," he announced during a luncheon to celebrate the government in Shah Alam, Selangor today.

The luncheon was hosted at the Sree Maha Kaliamman Temple where Ramesh is the adviser of.

Zahid joked that if there are any failures in helping the Indian committee, the people should blame Ramesh instead of him or Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Ramesh gained notoriety during the Najib Abdul Razak administration when his Pertubuhan Minda dan Sosial Prihatin (PMSP) NGO was among the various groups that would regularly lodge police reports against government critics.

One notable incident was when he organised a press conference for private investigator P Balasubramaniam's widow A Santamil Selvi to apologise to Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor.

This is for implying that they had something to do with her husband's death.

Ramesh was accused of paying off Selvi for the presser, which they both denied.

Bala had, in a 2008 statutory declaration, claimed that Najib knew murdered Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu. He retracted the claim in a second statutory declaration and then went into exile.

He died in 2013.

Meanwhile, Ramesh was also charged in February last year over a tweet that falsely linked the SRC International trial judge to former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He previously claimed that then Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who ruled that Najib was guilty of seven charges related to the RM42 million SRC International case, was Mahathir's grandnephew.

Najib is now serving 12 years behind bars after the Federal Court upheld his conviction.

Political appointments as minister's officers are often one way that those in power reward key allies.

Anwar last week appointed two former PKR lawmakers - Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin and Chan Ming Kai - as his political secretaries. - Mkini