MIC today stated its intention to contest nine parliamentary and 10 state seats in the coming 14th General Election (GE14).

Its president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said, the matter was still under discussion with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who is also Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman.

"We will also discuss with BN components and there is also possibility MIC will be given different seats this time," he told a press conference after MIC's 70th annual general meeting at the Putra World Trade Centre here today.

In GE13, MIC won four out of the nine parliamentary seats it contested and five out of 18 state seats. The BN won 133 seats out of the 222 up for grabs.

Earlier, in his speech, Dr Subramaniam said, via his 11th Development Action Plan, MIC was now in the process of engaging the community through various programmes with priority given to issues related to the younger generation.

This, he said, included the plan to set up 500 new branches with all of them to be led by graduates by the end of Dec 2016, as part of the party's rejuvenation programme which was in line with current political situation.

Dr Subramaniam, who is also Health Minister, said BN needed to invest a lot more in empowering the use of social media in countering the "perception war" ahead of GE14.

Saying that the GE14 would be the 'mother of all elections', Dr Subramaniam called for a transformation in the BN spirit, to strengthen the power sharing concept between various races in the party and to maintain the 60 years of joint leadership in administrating the country.

Dr Subramaniam also noted that opportunities for Indians in the public sector had yet to show any change although the Prime Minister had approved 1,500 permanent positions for the community last year.

"Until now, there were no appointments made, as the Public Service Commission said the positions were not needed," he said.

The MIC president also touched on education, job opportunities, housing, micro businesses, skills training, health and sosio-psychology. -- BERNAMA