Malaysian Associated Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MAICCI) president KK Eswaran said in a recent press statement in one of the dailies that Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia chairperson P Waythamoorthy does not have the right to ask for the resignation of Najib Abdul Razak for his failure to honour the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the BN signed with the association.

In addition, he said the government had allocated RM563 million for Tamil schools nationwide and RM160 million was disbursed through Tekun and other funds to the Indian Malaysian community, and therefore was doing a lot for the community.

I urge the MAICCI president now to answer the following questions:

You were present at the MOU signing ceremony on the April 18, 2013. What of the terms of the MOU have been fulfilled other than the appointment of Waythamoorthy as a deputy minister? Please name one, just one.

You can’t name any, because there just isn’t any. Now, is that not an outright breach of the contract by the CEO of the country? If so, what do you have to say about that?

What is the relevance of the past allocations to the current issue of BN failing to keep its contractual promise made that day the April 18, 2013. The current issue is that the BN government has failed the Indian poor miserably and breached that contract. Plain and simple.

To raise those other items now is to really to try and cover the whole big pumpkin of the betrayal of the Indian poor in a plate of rice, as the saying goes in Tamil. What is your real objective in referring to all those items of the past?

In any case, could the president of the MAICCI please detail where the RM563 million allocated really went. How many lives of the poor Indians did it transform? It is deceptive to equate actual impact on the ground with such statements of allocation. This is the kind of deception that has been going on for years and that which Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia wanted to avoid by taking on the responsibility for the implementation of the MOU.

So, please tell us where did the RM563 million actually go?

This is also exactly what the system will not bear. Honest and real allocations are not what the system obviously is capable of. Najib was playing little games with Waythamoorthy to pull the matter along as long as possible. Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia saw through the bluff and emptiness in Najib’s actions and further promises.

Waythamoorthy quit and urged the prime minister to take equal ownership for this fiasco and resign, too. Does that not make enough right to urge the PM to resign?

Democratically elected, you say, but democratically elected on empty promises and breached contracts? So where is the mandate after it became clear there is no delivery on the promises made for those votes? Is that still democratically elected?

A valid issue for all Malaysians to consider

In urging the resignation of Najib, Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia was raising the question of what good having a lame duck prime minister does for the country. That is a valid issue for all Malaysians to consider. Anything of what the prime minister says from here onwards, will be viewed as having no real substance.

I dare the prime minister to go in front of an Indian Malaysian crowd or any crowd for that matter and call out “Nambikei...!” just one more time. See what he gets and that will well make my point.

That Easwaran is doing this, can only mean one thing, for obviously he is not making sense otherwise in his statement. He is just trying to hold the crumbling fort for his Tuan and in the process maybe pick up a brownie point or two.

N GANESAN is Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia national adviser.