The opposition has rained criticisms on MyDaftar special implementation task force coordinator N Siva Subramaniam, chiding him for being an "apologist" for the Umno-led BN government.

Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy slammed Siva for saying recently that the government is "sincere about resolving the stateless Indians issue, but the parties tasked to do the job are clueless".

"Here is an apologist par excellence!" Ramasamy told Malaysiakini. "Can he stop being an Umno apologist?".

"The reason why the stateless Indian issue cannot be resolved is because the BN government simply lacks the political will to address the problem.

"Why blame those who are tasked to do the job, when applications are submitted to the National Registration Department (NRD), it gets stuck there?" Ramasamy asked.

Ramasamy (photo), who initiated the Penang Task Force on Statelessness in 2013, has submitted about 600 applications to the NRD, said the success rate of obtaining citizenships or identity cards was a daunting task.

"So far only 50 cases are successful, whose problem is this? Obviously, the problem lies with the NRD, let's not bark at the wrong tree," Ramasamy added.

"MyDaftar, on the other hand, is merely a PR exercise and does not address the issue of statelessness seriously," he stressed.

MyDaftar was set up with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's blessing to assist stateless Indians to resolve their statelessness issue.

Last month, Najib described the opposition's claim that about 300,000 Malaysian Indians were without citizenship papers as a "lie" as only 2,500
citizenship applications had been received from Malaysian Indians.

But Ramasamy insisted there are 300,000 stateless in Malaysia.

"Prove me wrong. Can you tell me the exact number of stateless people?" He demanded.

In his interview with Malaysiakini, Siva had slammed the opposition for not doing their job but instead, bickered among themselves while the people are tired of their politicking.

"Who is tired, everything is about politics here," Ramasamy shot back.

Meanwhile, PKR's Padang Serai MP N Surendran stated, "It is futile and unjust to blame the stateless Malaysian Indians themselves for this problem.

"It is unacceptable and wrong for people like Siva to blame it upon the 'literacy level' or 'failure of parents to register their children.' These issues do not explain why the problem of statelessness continues unresolved."

Surendran (photo) added that even after years of facing the issue of stateless Indians, there had yet to be any serious nationwide efforts taken by the NRD or Home Ministry to resolve the problem.

"The government has not even carried out a nationwide census on the number and location of stateless persons.

"BN leaders have instead regularly attempted to shift the problem to MIC linked NGOs, MyDaftar and other ad hoc bodies, who have made little progress towards resolving the problem," he added.

Calling Putrajaya's response "surprising" and "unprecedented", the PKR lawmaker stressed that the tasks of the government should primarily be carried out by the government itself, and cannot be "farmed out" to anyone else.

He cited the case of 35-year-old Kumari Muniandy in Penang, who is stateless even though her birth certificate confirms that both parents are Malaysian citizens.

As a consequence, her own school-going child, Gunawathy Krishnan, has also been rendered stateless.