After the fickle Selangor Umno U-turn over their hudud motion at the state assembly, MCA president Liow Tiong Lai now said in future the Chinese party would oppose any motion or bill on hudud, even if initiated by Umno.

“Anyone, no matter they are from PAS or Umno, as long as they mention hudud, our stand is the same, which is to oppose it strongly,” he said.

However, on whether he had pressured the nation’s largest party directly to withdraw the motion, he did not respond directly even when grilled by the press several times today.

The Bentong MP instead kept stressing that the most important thing was “consequence”, not the process itself.

Liow then said that Umno was merely submitting a motion urging the state government to study the feasibility of implementing hudud in Selangor, unlike PAS' earlier plan to table a private member’s' bill to enforce the Islamic law.

However, he denied that he was backing Umno by saying this.

Previous reports quoted  Liow as saying that he was not informed and briefed by Selangor Umno beforehand.

He refused to respond to that as well.

Selangor Umno stirred up a hornet’s nest this week when their Sungai Air Tawar assemblyperson Kamarol Zaki Abdul Malik proposed the motion, which Selangor state assembly speaker Hannah Yeoh subsequently accepted.

This sparked a curious situation where MCA leaders bayed at DAP for allowing the motion, with Yeoh responding as speaker she was obliged to be fair to all.

However, Selangor opposition leader Mohd Shamsudin Lias of Umno suddenly announced yesterday that the motion is withdrawn, due to the "misunderstanding" that it has caused.

To this, Liow said all BN elected representatives are given the right to propose motions to the assembly, but provided it has BN's consensus and respect what component party members think.

Guan Eng reckless like netizens

Liow also chided DAP and Yeoh for their "political ploy" of accepting the Umno motion.

He specifically lambasted its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng for “behaving recklessly like the netizens”, as the latter keeps condemning MCA despite Umno's explanation on the motion.

“As what we can see today, Lim kept behaving recklessly like netizens, claiming MCA is inconsistent and is a traitor.

"I was shocked on hearing such remarks (uttered by Lim, left ),” he said.

Liow, who was accompanied by his deputy president Wee Ka Siong and vice-president Chew Mei Fun during the press conference, also requested the other media organisations present not to report on the questions that the Malaysiakini journalist had asked earlier.

“Don't follow Malaysiakini . You (reporters) seem to be very interested with their questions,” he said in jest.