PETALING JAYA: PPP president M Kayveas did not mince his words when he accused his former youth chief T Murugiah of concocting tales and challenged the latter to prove him otherwise. Speaking to FMT, the veteran politician said Murugiah, who is Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, was only interested in safeguarding his government position.He said Murugiah, "who had lived under my shadows", had lied when he announced that he had some 200,000 supporters who would follow him to MIC.
"It's an utter lie. Even if we assume that he has the support, I would like to challenge him to take three simple steps if he is really serious in bringing some credibility to his claim,” he added. First, Kayveas said Murugiah needed to collect some 200,000 forms from the PPP headquarters.Second, fill it up, and third, once their memberships are verified, surrender all their membership cards."If his claim is true, then some 200,000 PPP members would have left the party when we sacked him two years ago. “But this never happened which is an indication that he never enjoyed such support from the grassroots, espceially the Indian community," added Kayveas, who was clearly irked with his former youth chief's statement.
Kayveas and Murugiah had been at loggerheads ever since the 2008 general election, in which the PPP president failed to defend his Taiping parliamentary seat under the Barisan Nasional banner. Murugiah was then appointed senator and given a deputy minister's post under the PPP quota.However, when things came to a boil, the PPP supreme council decided to sack Murugiah last year for working against the interest of the party.The sacking was contested by Murugiah and the case was referred to the Registrar or Societies, who ruled that Kayveas was the rightful president and had acted in accordance with the PPP constitution in sacking Murugiah.The deputy minister remained "partyless" for more than a year. Last week, MIC president S Samy Vellu announced that Murugiah would be allowed to become an ordinary MIC member without any other posts in the party.
'Almost zero contribution, good luck MIC'
Meanwhile, Kayveas said Murugiah had enjoyed some support from PPP members but this was because most of them thought that he had the full blessings of the president and not because of his own clout.Kayveas, who had just returned from a 10-day overseas trip, said Murugiah joined MIC because he needed another BN component party to extend his senatorship, which is renewed every two years.
"That's all. As far as I know most BN component parties had rejected him. He is actually a nobody and a total write-off. People like me, even though not holding any position in the cabinet still enjoy support from party members and BN component leaders," he said.Asked on Murugiah's contribution to PPP, Kayveas said it was "almost zero" as Murugiah had failed to deliver in all positions he had held.
"During his last six years in the party, he had even failed to renew his membership at the Selibin branch in Ipoh which later led to the party headquarters deregistering the branch.“For nearly 17 years, I built the party but people like Murugiah, their only achievement was dividing the party but now it is all over," he added.
Saying that Murugiah's departure was not a loss to PPP, the lawyer-turned-politician said:"I brought him into the party, I discouraged him from migrating to Australia when he was in some financial difficulty but now he betrayed me and the party.”"I will leave it to people to judge him (Murugiah), I am not going to pass a judgement on him," he said, admitting that it was his mistake in the first place for bringing Murugiah into the party and that in the last 10 years Murugiah was in PPP, he had only managed to bring in some 30 members.
"He was not fit for the job and I should not have offered him the post. Murugiah has been a thorn in the party and I'm happy now that everything is over. It's a blessing for the party which had strengthened further after members were devided into two factions for almost two years. I wish good luck to him and MIC," he added.
On Samy Vellu's announcement, the PPP supremo said that at this moment he was “not prepared" to be at loggerheads with the MIC president or any other BN component party leader "even though I am not happy from the beginning on the manner this issue was handled.""I just view Samy Vellu's announcement as a general statement that six ex-PPP members are being accepted into MIC. The announcement failed to state which PPP branch or division they were from," he added.
Source : http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/fmt-english/politics/barisan-nasional/8579-kayveas-3-step-dare-for-liar-traitor-murugiah
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