Ganga Nayar (3 August 1923 – 3 April 2009) was a Malaysian politician of Indian descent who founded the Malaysian Workers' Party. She is famously known as the first women to lead a political party in Malaysia. She is also the first Indian woman to be elected to a legislature in Malaysia.

Overview

Ganga Nayar (3 August 1923 – 3 April 2009) was a Malaysian politician of Indian descent who founded the Malaysian Workers' Party. She is famously known as the first women to lead a political party in Malaysia. She is also the first Indian woman to be elected to a legislature in Malaysia. Political career She joined the Labour Party of Malaya in 1958 at the age of 34 stating that, "Serving with politics and serving without politics is different. When in politics, you can serve with power, more aggressively. Without politics, you serve passively. That's the main reason I went into politics." After the Labour Party and the Socialist Front (Malayan Peoples' Socialist Front) were decimated by ISA arrests, she then crossed over to the Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia which was formed ahead of the 1969 elections. She rose to become the first chief for the party's women's section. In the 1969 general elections, she stood on a Gerakan ticket for the State seat of Serendah with an electorate of nearly 14,000. Although she was the chairman of Gerakan branch in Sentul, she was pushed to contest in Serendah after negotiations between Gerakan and DAP.

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