Mira New Gen, a pro-Pakatan Harapan party, wants newly-elected prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to form a Department of Minorities and Indian Affairs to look into the issue of stateless people within the first 100 days of the new government.

Its president A Rajaretinam said while the Indian population is listed at 1.8 million statistically, the party believes there are another 1.2 million who are not registered as citizens or do not have identity cards.

Hence, he said, his party could help assist in the formation of the department and help the government register the people concerned.

"The problem persists because some of them do not have birth certificates, and hence identity cards. The problem is prolonged or made worse further when the people got married but have problems registering their children as they do not have identification papers.

"I used to work with the National Registration Department for some years when this problem was uncovered. Hence, the formation of such a department would help assist in their registration and alleviate the problem.

"We hope to meet Mahathir next week to discuss this problem. A department is needed as the people would not come to the office and register and this is where Mira New Gen party can help to reach out to them directly," Rajaretinam said.

He added that besides looking after the Indian community, the department could also look after the affairs of the Orang Asli and Siamese Malaysian communities.

In the past, he said, the MIC had failed in this task as it had hoped for the people to come to it, instead of reaching out to them.

He also offered the party's congratulations to Mahathir and Harapan in Wednesday general election and said his party had done its part in convincing the Indian and Orang Asli voters to vote for Harapan.

'Form RCI for Maika and investigate Sedic'

Rajaretinam also said the party wants the new Harapan government to form a royal commission of inquiry to look into the losses incurred by Maika Holdings.

"Some 60,000 people lost their investments in the fund formed by MIC," Rajaretinam said.

He also wants the government to audit and investigate the Socio-economic and Development of Indian Community Unit (Sedic), which was placed under the Prime Minister’s Department by former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.

Rajaretinam believes Sedic has failed in its objective and that its programmes did not reach the target group.

"Millions of ringgit are channelled into the fund and I understand that it is given to non-governmental organisations or to cronies.

"It’s like another Maika. Sedic should be audited and investigated by the new administration," he said.

He added that while Harapan has listed 25 initiatives for the Indian community, the matter of governance of such a fund was important, including the funds to be allocated for temples.