MIC has withdrawn its application to join Perikatan Nasional pending a decision from the party’s central working committee.

This was conveyed to the Registrar of Societies in an August 24 letter from party secretary-general M. Asojan Muniyand.

Asojan wrote that that the party had agreed to join PN on July 15 under the impression that Barisan Nasional would also be joining the pact headed by Bersatu.

“However, since Umno has announced on July 29 that it will not be joining PN, the MIC central working committee’s decision on July 10 to join PN is now ineffective.

“Until a new decision is made by the MIC CWC, the previous decision to join PN is withdrawn,” he said in the letter.

Several party leaders confirmed that the letter was sent to RoS.

A party source told The Malaysian Insight that MIC leaders had been disturbed by some of PAS and Bersatu’s decisions in recent weeks.

“In Kedah, PAS has decided not to renew a senatorship previously reserved for MIC. The party (PAS) has taken the senatorship for itself.

“And then we have Bersatu wanting to recruit non-Malay members into the party. These are decisions that dilute MIC’s influence among the Indian voters,” said the source.

MIC was disappointed and unhappy over these developments, the source added.

Bersatu and PAS are driving the move to formalise the PN pact.

MIC president S.A. Vigneswaran yesterday said the Indian party had joined PN because it had assumed that BN would do the same.

MIC had been surprised, he said, when Umno declined to do so because the Malay party was contented with the Muafakat Nasional (MN) pact it had with PAS.

“Before we registered, we were given the impression that Umno and BN would join PN after meeting with Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on July 1,” Vigneswaran was quoted as saying.

Vigneswaran said the confusion stemmed from Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. 

Zahid had given BN members the impression that parties on the peninsula and in Sabah and Sarawak would come together under the PN umbrella, Vigneswaran said

The MIC CWC had even passed a resolution to join PN, he added.

“As far as I remember, Zahid has told BN component parties that he will contest (as part of) a large coalition of Bersatu, PAS and BN on the peninsula. Only then would PN be (firmly) established as the central government.

“So when we got consent from the CWC, we stated our agreement to register and submitted the letter of acceptance on July 15; but on July 29 we found out that Umno had not registered.

“Only now, after MIC has registered with PN, that you tell us Umno will not join. Why is that? Why not speak earlier?” Vigneswaran is reported to have said. – August 27, 2020.