Ready to merge with other Indian-based parties: MIC

Malaysia's largest ethnic Indian political party has said that it is ready to merge with other Indian based parties, stressing that it will not agree to the formation of a new party to represent the community.

"It was inappropriate for Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), one of the oldest political parties, to lose its identity," party's deputy president S Subramaniam said.

"They asked the MIC to 'gulung' (fold up), we are not prepared to 'gulung'. The original idea was that everybody merge with MIC, for which we are quite prepared. But some of them still want to maintain their identity," he said.

"Another thing is, they want guarantee of certain positions and posts. That will depend on ability to accommodate their request," he added.

Last week, ruling coalition Barisan Nasional secretary- general Adnan Tengku Mansor urged all ethnic Indian-based political parties under the Barisan umbrella to merge into a single entity in the "best interests" of their community.

It was pointless for the parties to compete with each other when they could be better off working together to improve the future of the minority Indian community, he said.

MIC is an important component of the ruling coalition of Barisan Nasional and was established in August 1946. Malaysia's 28 million population includes 8 percent ethnic Indians, a majority of whom are Tamils.