Long serving MIC president S Samy Vellu has hit back at his detractors labelling him as a "dictator" running the party.

"Only lazy people who just sit on the chair and has no idea at all to help the Indian community will say I am a dictator. I am here to fulfill my promise to help the community and I will stay as long as they want," Bernama quoted him as saying today.

"As a politician, I cannot say I don't expect challenges. This is a democratic party and anyone can run for the (MIC) presidency," he said.

The Kluang-born Samy, who joined the party in 1959, became the MIC deputy president in 1977 and was made acting president in 1979 after the death of V. Manickavasagam that year.

Since his election as the seventh MIC president in 1981, Samy managed to overcome many challengers to his leadership.

One of the biggest threat was when his deputy, S. Subramaniam, mounted a challenge but lost in 1989.

But there were calls for his resignation outside the party, especially after Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced his quit decision in June.

Time to retire

Samy's derision of the dictator remark, however, did not go down well with Indian Malaysians in the opposition.

DAP Selangor committee member S Ramakrishnan said Samy Vellu has served more than 20 years as MIC president and has used party machineries to weaken his opponents in the MIC by bringing in many of his cronies.

"Many in the party's top leadership now are aligned to him," Ramakrishnan told malaysiakini .

Ramakrishnan, who is DAP's squatter and estate committee bureau head, also criticised Samy's leadership and his 'contributions' to the Indian Malaysian community.

He added that over the 20 years of Samy's leadership, the Indian Malaysian community has become "worse off and backwards".

"This is a failure on his (Samy's) part as a leader of the community. He should take some blame. Indeed, he should give way to someone who can bring about improvement in the community in terms of jobs, education and housing," he said.

"Over the years, due to their weak economic status, the Indian Malaysians have become worst than immigrants. If there is anything we have achieved, it is the worsening stigma attached to the community," he added.

Time to retire

His counterpart in the opposition, Keadilan supreme council member N Gobalakrishnan said it was time for Samy to retire from active politics, like Mahathir, and spend more time with his family.

Gobalakrishnan responded strongly to Samy's dismissal of his dictator label, asking "what has he done so far for Indian Malaysians?"

"What are the policies beneficial to the community? We have been asking for free education but Samy Vellu wants to promote commercial education," he said.

Gobalakrishnan was referring to TAFE, the MIC-backed educational institution which has branches in several states.

In an unrelated development, the MIC president stated in Ipoh today that from next year, the party will limit the appointment of district councillors to only two years and not four as practised now.

"This is to enable more party leaders to serve as district councillors. But those who have performed extremely well will be considered for another term," he said.

He said there are more than 700 MIC branches in Perak but only 35 district councillor's posts were allocated to the party.

Samy said the MIC division chairmen would remain as district councillors as long as they were in the post due to the need to deal with the district offices and other agencies to solve various problems.