Newly formed Indian-based party, the Malaysian Indian United Party (MIUP), vowed to support the Barisan Nasional-led government, believing that by doing so, opportunity to elevate the social status of the Indian community would be better. The party's launching ceremony was held yesterday afternoon at Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur after Nalla has announced the formation of the party a month ago.
Around 700 supporters witnessed the party launching by its president, Nallakaruppan. In his opening speech, he mentioned that, MIUP was formed as there is still space for another Indian based political party to exist in Malaysia and he was sure MIUP would feel the vacum with great success.. Nalla explained the scenario of Malaysian Indian who are still lagging behind in many ways and stressed that Indians have a very poor political knowledge of where they have failed to obtain their rights in proper ways. Thus, he said, MIUP will be creating the political awareness among the Indian community and vowed to help them at its own way and style. He assures the party will play its role in a very effective way in bringing up the Indians in Malaysia using a fresh approach in a quick way. The crowd cheered loudly as Dato Nalla said his way will be very unique indeed, quoting the punch dialogue of Tamil Superstar Rajnikanth in the movie Padayappa. He expect others to not interfere in his way of doing the necessary help for the community as the party's main aim is to help Indians and not to play politics. Nallakaruppan was also quick to stress that there was no intention of discrediting the much-established Indian-based party MIC. Nallakaruppan said that MIC should continue with their agenda and that the MIUP will also concentrate on its mission though the latter might have different approaches to issues.
The party supporters were made clear of the stand of MIUP where the party will not go against BN, and will continuously support the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime minister. MIUP will extend its arm to support whatever policies done by Barisan Nasional. Yet, MIUP will not join with any other parties and will function as a stand alone entity in Malaysian politics. But, Dato' Nalla cleared that his party willing to accept other parties interested to merge themselves with MIUP in the future. He also said that his party would be first launching plans to establish an independent Tamil secondary soon. According to him, his party has started the ground work for the effort and its 10,000 supporters are standing with him in making it real. After the party president's speech, Nalla introduced his 11 leaders on stage while all of them shouting, "Kita sokong Barisan Nasional". Then, Dato Nalla and Datin M.Vijayakumari received their membership cards and it was also mentioned during the ceremony that the party logo and colour concept was designed by Datin M.Vijayakumari.
Before the ceremony ends, Dato Nalla thanked all the supporters and expressed his disappointment as more of his supporters from other states were sent back during the police lock downs to prevent Hindraf Rally. He further promise that MIUP believes in transparency and will uphold the open policy in political arena.
The newly formed MIUP was approved by the government on Sept 14. Dato' Nalla announced that he will be the party president and he has identified a team of capable leaders who will help him to run the racially charged political party. He made it clear in a recent press conference that the primary aim of the party will be to 'bring up' the Indian community which is lagging in economic, political and social development. He also vowed to uplift the standard of living of rural Indians and to help socially problematic Indian youths like those involved in gangsterism. Malaysiakini has reported that the party which has 100 members for now has planned to gather 3,000 to 4,000 members by next month and at least 20,000 new members in three to four months time.
Being the minority community in Malaysia, Indians now have more than enough political parties to cater their needs - MIC, IPF, PPP and now MIUP has joined the club. Of course, the more the merrier! But, will MIUP play a better role compared to the other political parties in projecting the voice of the minority Indians and to uplift their living standard to a better height? It might be too early to decide now. We shall wait some time to see what MIUP has in its mind for the Malaysian Indians and how well can they execute their plans as promised.
Today, Dato' Nalla gave a 10 minutes interview for Bolehland explaining his motive of coming up with a political party. The interview was conducted mainly in Tamil and a little bit of English here and there. He answered some of the questions raised by the readers and commented on several issues related to the party. He further expressed his happiness that his few days old party has started to reach the people and has become a word of mouth in some areas. Commenting for Bolehland, he stressed that he'll be explaining on the party's plans and objective in detail during its official launch next month.
The fully translated transcrip of the interview is yet to be ready. Keep an eye on Bolehland for more updates. Meanwhile, you may download the audio clip of the interview with Dato’ Nalla HERE.
