MIC president S Samy Vellu today came under criticism from several delegates who debated on the presidential speech, during the second day of the party's annual general meeting at the Putra World Trade Centre.

A delegate from Selangor said the party president had sent a birthday card to a branch leader who had already died about four years ago.

mic election 120909 samy votes The delegate said the wife of the deceased had approached him expressing regret that Samy Vellu had sent such a card and asked that the party president not to do such things in the future.

Another delegate from Kubang Pasu, Kedah said that it took nine years for the Indian community there to buy a piece of land to build a Tamil school and had approached Samy Vellu for financial assistance to build it.

However, he said that despite sending letters and meeting Samy Vellu three times, nothing positive had come from Samy Vellu so far.

Another Kedah delegate pointed out that the rootcauses of the Kampung Buah Pala problem in Penang was due to the "failure" of the MIC leadership to address the issue from beginning.

This prompted Samy Vellu to challenge the delegate to prove his allegations, saying that he (Samy Vellu) was willing to resign from party post if the delegate could prove them.

Another delegate said that while the influenza A(HINI) pandemic was new - affecting the country for the past several months, neverthless, he said it had "affected" MIC since March 8 2008, when the party went through the most humiliating defeat in its 63 history.

‘Keep you thought to yourself Dr M'

Meanwhile, despite Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's strong denial that he had interfered in the affairs of MIC, he too came under fire from several delegates.

"No need for advice" said one delegate from Negeri Sembilan and another had this to say: "Please mind your own business. We know what we are doing".

mic election 120909 crowd A woman delegate asked the party to come out with a new design for their uniform for official use during party function, as they had been using the current outdated design for the past 10 years, and Samy Vellu said that a new design was in the planning.

A delegate from the Klang Valley said that the government should come out with financial assistance to help the Indian community to buy unit trust shares offered by the government.

Several delegates also reminded the new team which won yesterday's party election to go to the ground and strengthen the party at all levels, and respect the grassroots in order to bring back support from the Indian community.

Permanent Chairman G Vadiveloo also had a "rough day" as he had to keep reminding delegates to concentrate on the debate and not on reading newspapers inside the hall.

Eight resolutions passed

Meanwhile the general assembly today among others proposed that the government allocate loans through agencies or financial agencies to the Indian community to enable its members to purchase shares issued by the government.

Such a step would supplement the government's step to allocate 499 units of Amanah Saham Malaysia shares for the community and it was one of eight resolutions passed by the party here today that covered issues of education, politics, the economy and social matters.

On the issue of education, the MIC wants the government to prepare pre-school education opportunities for 80 per cent of Tamil schools as opposed to the 17.5 per cent now.

Also the MIC wants the Education Ministry to increase the limit of subjects for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination from 10 to 11 so that science stream SPM candidates can sit for the Tamil language and Tamil literature papers.

The party also welcomed the '1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now' concept as well as the liberal policy of Najib.

- Bernama