Palani tells members to get more members .

SEREMBAN: MIC president Senator G Palanivel's main focus after taking over the party leadership is to get the Indian community who are eligible to vote to register as voters.He said there were currently about 400,000 of them nationwide who had yet to register as voters."We have launched the exercise last August and are mobilising party divisions to identify the persons and to get them to register as voters.

"The second objective is to get them to become MIC members," he told reporters after presenting school aid, worth RM20,000 contributed by the Giant Supermarket, to more than 500 students from poor Indian families here today.Palanivel, who is also Deputy Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities, said he had set a condition which required party members interested to become branch leaders to recruit new members into the party, as well as get them to register as voters.

"We want MIC members to register as voters in their respective area. We do not want them to become voters in other constituencies," he added.He said there were currently about 600,000 MIC members nationwide and was targetting to get one million members.

Party polls could be postponed

On the Tenang by-election which would be called following the death of its Assemblyman, Sulaiman Taha, last Friday, Palanivel said he was confident of Barisan Nasional retaining the seat.He said 12 percent of the voters in the Tenang state constituency were Indian.On MIC election, he said the party would discuss the matter.“If there is a general election, we will postpone the party election so that we can focus on making preparations for the general election," he added.

Source- Bernama