Ramasamy, a DAP central executive committee member, said MIC president Dr S Subramaniam should stop heaping blame on Mahathir, 93, for not addressing the welfare of Indians during his 22-year rule.
“Mahathir should be blamed for the plight of Indians when he was the prime minister,” he said. “But at the same time I would like to know from Subramaniam what the MIC was doing when Mahathir was in power,” he added.
“Samy Vellu (MIC president during Mahathir’s time) who often boasted of Mahathir as a great prime minister never broached the subject of stateless Indians, among others,” said Ramasamy, who is state assemblyman for Perai.
He asked for how much longer would Subramaniam and others blame Mahathir for the neglect of Indians.
“If Mahathir suddenly realises that the problem of Indians needs to be addressed even at his present age, isn’t (this) to be welcomed? In fact, Mahathir, whatever his earlier faults, must be genuinely thanked for spearheading the PH manifesto (for Indians),” he said in a statement today.
Subramaniam had said on April 6 that the problems faced by the Indian community were a result of government disregard for the community’s welfare during Mahathir’s 22-year reign as prime minister till 2003.
“All these issues (such as statelessness among Indians and the plight of Tamil schools) were left aside without any resolution; today the problems involving the Indians have become a legacy problem,” he said.
Mahathir, now chairman of PH and PPBM, has blamed former MIC president S Samy Vellu, a minister in his cabinet, for not doing anything for the Indian community, and he had urged voters to punish MIC at the elections.
Ramasamy said Subramaniam must question why Samy failed to steer MIC towards resolving some of the acute problems.