With just two days left for the general elections, Malaysian leaders are wooing the minority ethnic Indians, whose sudden outburst against alleged marginalisation has rattled premier Abdullah Badawi's ruling coalition, which is predicted to win the polls.

Largely seen as supportive of the ruling Barisan Nasional Party, the Indian community took the government by surprise when more than 20,000 of its members joined a rally called by the Hindu Rights Action Front late last year to protest alleged discrimination against Indians in this country.

The government has denied these allegations, but after the November 25 rally, leaders have been traveling across the nation to convince the ethnic Indians that their interests would be looked after.

The 12th Malaysian election pits Abdullah's long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition of 14 parties against three main opposition parties, the left-leaning Democratic Action Party, the Islamist party Parti Islam se-Malaysia and former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim's Parti Keadilan.

Polls had not been due until May 16, 2009. Analysts feel that Abdullah could have called early elections before signs of economic slowdown and inflation showed up in the coming months. Currently the economy is on a high growth path.

Candidates will be contesting for 222 Parliamentary and 505 State seats. There are 10,922,139 registered voters including 221,085 postal voters. So far, the ruling coalition has won nine seats unopposed on the closing of nominations.

Ethnic Indians form 7.8 per cent of Malaysia's 27 million people. Most of them are Hindus from Tamil Nadu whose ancestors were brought here by the British 200 years ago to work in rubber plantations and as indentured labourers.

According to analysts, the group within the Indian community, which needs urgent attention, are the descendants of these indentured labourers. Most of them belong to the low-income category within the Malaysian Indian community.

Samy Vellu, the President of the Malaysian Indian Congress, a component of the ruling coalition, has admitted that several obstacles impeded the progress of ethnic Indians, who migrated from the rural to the urban areas.

He blamed social ills like alcoholism, increasing school dropout rate and high crime rate as factors responsible for these Indians remaining backward.

Vellu is the lone ethnic Indian minister in the Badawi cabinet. He has held on to his position as president of the MIC for over two decades now. Analysts say the November 25 rally was indirectly aimed at Vellu, as sections of the community felt that the MIC had not really done enough to uplift the Indians, a charge vehemently denied by Vellu.

In recent newspaper advertisements, the MIC boasted that it had a strong and proven track record for delivery and urged ethnic Indians to vote for the MIC.

Abdullah too has assured the ethnic Indians that problems faced by them would be seriously looked into and addressed.

"This is not just an empty promise but a serious promise that we will carry out. I am listening to your problems and demands. We will discuss your problems and will execute
whatever we have promised in the Barisan Nasional's manifesto, if we win in the coming elections," he told ethnic Indians at his Kepala Batas constituency.

Badawi said the government was aware that there were many problems affecting the Indians that had not been settled.

Vellu has also sought to reassure ethnic Indians about the government's efforts in the field of education, an area in which poor ethnic Indians are seen as lagging behind.

Vellu said that in the last 20 years, the MIC had rebuilt almost 100 schools with 30 million ringit (Rs 30 crore) in grants from the government and an additional 7 million ringgit raised by the MIC. He has also claimed that the federal government had allocated one million (Rs one crore) ringgit annually for the construction of temples, apart from providing land for the same.

Hindraf member M Manoharan, who is currently detained under the tough Internal Security Act, will contest the Kota Alam Shah state seat now held by Barisan incumbent Ching Su Chen.

Vellu, who turns 72 on polling day, will defend his Sungai Siput parliamentary seat for the ninth term and faces a three-way fight. His is pitted against Michael Devraj Jeyakumar, an ethnic Indian who is a member of opposition Parti Socialista Malaysia.

Another prominent ethnic Indian leader of the opposition Democratic Action Party, Karpal Singh, is also in the fray.

Malaya, the 11 states in the Malay Peninsula, gained independence from Britain in 1957 and merged with the Borneo states of Sarawak and Sabah and Singapore to form Malaysia in 1963. Singapore became a separate country two years later.

Badawi took office in 2003 after the departure of Mahathir Mohamad, the longest-serving prime minister of the country. Badawi won the last elections in March 2004 by a landslide. Barisan Nasional won 12 of the country's 13 states, and more than 90 per cent of seats in the parliament.