Indians know the truth, says Kula | Free Malaysia Today

Indians know the truth, says Kula

G Vinod | October 8, 2012 

An advertisement published in Tamil dailies yesterday made comparison between allocations for the Indian community under the federal budget and Pakatan Rakyat-led states. 

UPDATED

KUALA LUMPUR: A DAP MP today criticised the government for attempting to hoodwink the Indian community by comparing allocation for the Indian community in Budget 2013 with Pakatan Rakyat-led state budgets.

“The people are not stupid. They know the truth,” said Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran at the Parliament during the debate on Budget 2013.

Yesterday, Tamil dailies published an advertisement comparing the allocation made for Indians in Budget 2013 as opposed to Pakatan led states’ programmes for the community.

Calling it a desperate attempt, Kulasegaran said it was ridiculous for those behind the advertisement to compare a federal budget to a state budget as the latter had lesser resources.

“Budget 2013 involves RM250 billion. Do you think state governments has that kind of money to offer? BN leaders are bankrupt of ideas,” said Kulasegaran.

Touching on allocations to Tamil schools, the DAP leader said that the federal government should not boast about it in advertisements.

“That is your responsibility. You are supposed to provide adequate allocation to all schools in Malaysia because they are all our children,” he said.

He also poured cold water on the government’s offer to give 1,000 matriculation places to bright Indians students, saying many did not receive the offer despite being qualified.

“Prove to me 1,000 places were given Indian students in recent years,” said Kulasegaran.

In June, a former MIC branch chairman VT Rajen pointed out that many bright Indian students were left out in the selection for the matriculation programmes.

“Despite the community asking for a list of students offered matriculation seats, MIC president G Palanivel had failed to disclose the information,” Rajen reportedly said.

Cheap propaganda

Meanwhile, PKR vice-president N Surendran also criticised the advertisements, calling it blatant dishonesty on Najib’s part.

“The point is most of the problems faced by the Indian community over the past several decades has been happening under BN’s rule.

“So for him to come out and pretend that he is doing better than Pakatan shows his complete dishonesty,” he told FMT.

Surendran was also confident that the Indian community would not fall for such “cheap propaganda and plain lies”.

“We can expect more such proapanda to appear in the media as the genereal election draws closer but the mainstream media will not carry advertisements from the opposition,” he added.