After pledging last week to help Pakatan Harapan capture marginal seats, the NewGen Party has unveiled its 14th general election roadmap, which includes a series of “mega-ceramah” sessions around the country.

NewGen deputy president Francis Rajahh said these ceramah would be held in marginal constituencies to convince minorities to vote for Harapan.

“Starting Nov 1, we will travel to Kuala Selangor, Sungai Petani, Teluk Intan, Bentong and Tebrau.

“At the ceramah sessions, we will also have membership and GE14 voter registration drives, we hope to sign up 100,000 members from these talks,” Francis said, adding that the party’s membership currently stands at 2,000.

Ceramah in Sabah and Sarawak are also in the pipeline, said the party, which is currently applying to change its name to the Minorities Rights Action Party (Mira).

NewGen will also be present at the Malaysian Minorities National Agenda (Minda@2040) conference this Sunday, where about a 100 NGOs will discuss and put together a manifesto on minority demands.

These demands will then be submitted to the Harapan presidential council.

Meanwhile, NewGen president Rajaretinam Armuggan led a team in submitting an application to PKR requesting to be the fifth Harapan component party.

“Accepting us will be an opportunity for Harapan to make itself complete as we will represent the voice of Indians on the Harapan council.

“We will work with other Harapan Indian leaders and complement them, plus we will provide check and balance by participating in policy making (if Harapan forms the government),” Rajaretinam said, adding that applications to other Harapan component parties would also be sent today.

Later, he clarified that the party represented the voice of not only Indians, but other minority groups such as the Orang Asal, Siamese and indigenous communities in Sabah and Sarawak.

‘We’re not Hindraf’

Rubbishing queries about being a rival party to Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia – whose president previously met with Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad to mull a possible collaboration – NewGen said one key difference set the two apart.  

“We are an official political party and an official vehicle, while Hindraf is not.

“But the door is open to Hindraf to join NewGen, many other Indian NGOs also support us,” said NewGen secretary-general Kannan Ramasamy, who claimed he was formerly with Hindraf.