People's Action Party's (PAP) K Shanmugam explained at a walkabout in Yishun on July 4 why there are no new Indian PAP candidates for GE2020.

He highlighted that none of the nine Indian candidates, of whom some are ministers, will be retiring this year.

Currently, there are nine Indian representatives: Shanmugam

Responding to a media query in Tamil, Shanmugam explained in Tamil that currently there are nine Indians in Parliament, and no one will be stepping down during GE2020.

He felt that Indians are well-represented in Parliament and explained that Indian representatives makes up about 10 per cent of the Parliament.

In comparison, he mentioned that Indians only make up about 7.5 per cent of the national population.

He acknowledged that younger Indian members of Parliament are needed, and that this can be addressed in the future when some of the current Indian representatives, who are in their fifties or sixties, retire.

We take all 4 official languages very seriously: Shanmugam

In response to another question from the media about why opposition parties did not have representatives who addressed the Tamil community, Shanmugam responded that each party makes its calculation on whether to send a Tamil representative.

He then added that "as far as the PAP is concerned, we have four official languages".

He said: "We take all four very seriously".

He also elaborated that this is not just to reach out to the Tamil-speaking community but to "show respect to the Tamil speaking population".

He said: "We respect you, and we will make sure that, you know, we show that, and you show that in these ways."

Top image by Angela Lim