After his party was routed in last month's general elections for not doing enough for the minority Indian community, Malaysian Indian Congress president Samy Vellu said he would step down if partymen wanted him to quit.
"Whether or not I remain as the president is not for me to decide," the 72-year-old party president, who has been at the helm of party affairs for past 30 years, said.
"Let the branch leaders decide because they are the voters," Vellu, Works minister in the previous Abdullah Badawi government, said on Thursday.
"If they say 'No' and I have to leave, I'll say okay, bye-bye. That afternoon itself, I will pack up and go away," media reports quoted him as saying.
Vellu lost his Sungei Siput parliamentary seat in the March 8 elections, which he had held for eight terms.
The MIC fielded nine candidates for parliamentary seats of which only three won and its miserable faring was largely blamed on the inability of Vellu to do much to uplift the minority Indian community in this country though he had been the MIC chief for close to 30 years.
The ethnic Indians found a voice to air their woes through a non-governmental group Hindu Rights Action Force, which called for a rally on November 25, 2007, to protest against marginalisation of Indians.
More than 20,000 ethnic Indians took part in the protest taking the government and Vellu by surprise.
