I refer to the Malaysiakini report Seven issues affecting the Indians .

After being a leader of the Indian community for 30 years now, S Samy Vellu raised the seven issues affecting the Indians in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak at PWTC.

All this 30 years, what have they (the Barisan Nasional and MIC) done to elevate the needs of the Indian community?

Samy has knowingly omitted the eighth issue that is close to heart of the 80,000 odd shareholders of Maika Holdings who were cheated and promised that their investments will bring decent returns to help them improve their wealth accumulation.

Why was this issue not raised at the meeting? Are they hiding the abuses by all those who headed Maika? The biggest culprit is the founder of Maika Holdings who raised RM100 million. What was done with the money/funds collected for which no one is prepared to answer at MIC AGMs.

There were so many reports about the management of Maika and the Telekom share issue but no authority was bold enough to take action because it is an Indian company. Let them wind up for no matter what happens, the Indians will blindly vote for Barisan Nasional.

Our great leader is panicking now and to garner the Indian votes, he comes around with another election promise. Please do not fall into the trap. Let us be united and vote for deserving cases and not the clowns who have deprived and plundered the community in every aspect.

This started from the fragmentation of the estates, the taking over of estate land for development without any consideration for the re-settlement of Indians, the forced migration of Indians to urban squatters, the lack of rehabilitation programmes for the Indians so that they could survive, the depleted condition of Tamil schools and you name it.

Why is there a sudden up surge in interest to help the Indian community? The answer to this question is that the general election is not far away and our votes are very crucial to the MIC leaders and our Umno masters. So our mandor Samy Vellu will be out in the streets begging for our votes but do they deserve our votes?

The year 2008 should be a watershed to show the entire nation and the world that Indian Malaysians are very hurt over the marginalisation of the community, the arrest of the Hindraf leaders under ISA. We should cast protest votes against the Barisan. This will be a great lesson to the political masters to show them that every community is important to the nation no matter how small the number is when there is an election.

May God guide and give strength to the Indians to face the challenges ahead as the political masters have sucked up our rights and opportunities. But the Indians will survive no matter what happens.