Slip-per of the tongue

MIC president Datuk Seri Samy Vellu has gone too far by allowing a delegate to say that a garland of slippers should be hung on a portrait of former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad during the party's AGM last weekend.

Even though Samy shushed him up the damage has been done.

Now hordes of Malays - and lots of Malaysians - are hammering him and MIC for such an insult. And rightfully so.

To calm things down, he has suspended the delegate but that does not seem to be enough. The people want him and the delegate to apologise.

Samy should have known better than to allow a former PM who is still much revered by Malaysians, despite his faults, to be insulted in such an unbecoming manner.

Perhaps he did not know beforehand what the delegate would say, but shouldn't he have briefed the delegates on the do's and don'ts. After all, aren't they all the president's men?