I refer to the Malaysiakini report Karpal tells PAS to drop Islamic state policy.

Can Karpal Singh and other DAP leaders please spare us the never ending sideshow over the Islamic state issue? Some PAS leaders make some comments about Islamic state and Karpal jumps in to demand a retraction. This has been going on for sometime.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media gleefully exploits the exchange as ‘cracks’ in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

We all know that whatever Islamic state is postulated by PAS is just empty bluster. To change Malaysia from a secular to an Islamic state with hudud laws require a two-thirds majority in Parliament to amend the federal constitution.

As the political reality stands and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future , there is not the remotest chance of PAS being able to capture a two-thirds majority of parliament seats on its own.

To put this is perspective, not even Umno at its greatest strength can achieve such a feat.

So why respond to empty bluster and give the mainstream media fodder to knock the nascent alliance? Is the very mention of an Islamic state so objectionable and terrifying that it must immediately be countered with a demanded retraction?

For Karpal’s information, some Umno leaders, namely Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Razak have previously declared Malaysia an Islamic state and we have moved on. A label with nothing behind it only affects you if you allow it to.

Perhaps Karpal fears losing political points with non-Malays if any talk of Islamic state is not aggressively countered. But fears of PAS religious extremism have been blunted by Umno’s very own religious extremist acts such as body-snatching, family separation, temple demolitions and bureaucratic obstructions to construction of non-Muslim places of worship.

The public is well aware of DAP’s commitment to a secular Malaysia so Karpal need not worry. Frankly, most Malaysians trust DAP and PKR to hold PAS in check rather than MCA and MIC to hold Umno in check.

I know PAS is just as responsible but it takes two hands to clap. The mullah in PAS will never stop promoting an Islamic state as they consider it their religious duty to do so.

But by not responding to it, it remains as localised preaching instead of being blown out of proportion and exploited by the mainstream media.

Let PAS carry on with their righteous boasts if it makes them feel better, we all know what the political reality is.