Amanah man chides DAP's Ramasamy over Cabinet line-up

An Amanah leader has hit out at Penang Deputy Chief Minister P Ramasamy over his criticism that the Cabinet line-up announced by Anwar Ibrahim has only one minister from the ethnic Indian community.

Razak Ridzuan, the deputy Amanah Youth chief, urged Ramasamy to be big-hearted, saying the latter should emulate his party DAP which was willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the government's stability.

Razak also advised Ramasamy not to make public his criticism, saying the current political situation was unprecedented and needed every coalition making up the government to set aside their own interests.

"Ramasamy should also learn from the 22-month experience of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, whose leaders were often seen clashing in public, until it was exploited by political enemies," said Razak.

Ramasamy meanwhile has defended his views amid a barrage of comments from PH supporters condemning him.

He said that his request for another minister from the Indian community was a call for "recognition and respect". 

In a Facebook post defending his stand, he said he was not speaking from the viewpoint of ethnic nationalism, but from the perspective of recognising the basic ethnic and cultural rights of the Indian community.

"It is not that an additional post is going to fundamentally alter the development status of the community," he said.

"It is merely one small step in the right direction saying that the present unity government pays attention to the powerless numerically small ethnic communities in the country."