An Umno branch in Negeri Sembilan has claimed that certain quarters allegedly tried to disrupt a function to honour former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad over the weekend.

Kampung Padang Jual Umno branch head Abu Samah Mahat said those involved organised a concert on the same day - last Saturday - supposedly in conjunction with the Merdeka celebrations.

However, he claimed that the concert was organised to disrupt the function held by the branch, which comes under the Kuala Pilah division.

"We learnt that when they found out that we were having a function with Mahathir, that was when they decided to organise the concert," he said, without mentioning names.

Abu Samah also alleged that seven buses were brought in to ferry the locals to the concert, which featured famous Malay songs from the 1960s.

Division leaders unhappy

He said the Umno branch had met with the division leaders earlier to inform them about the function, and the latter were not pleased.

Abu Samah added that the Mahathir function was held to honour the contributions of the former premier and Umno president to the country and party.

He said during his 22-year tenure, Mahathir had managed to carve a name for the country.

"This was to the point that when he wanted to retire, they did not allow him to do so. Many Umno leaders cried when he resigned in 2003.

"Unfortunately, today everyone hates him to the extent that there are attempts to erase his name from history," he added.

Some 500 party members and supporters attended Saturday's function, where Mahathir said democracy had died in Umno.

No blessing for event

Meanwhile, Kuala Pilah Umno division head Ismail Lasim said the division has yet to decide whether to take action against the branch for organising the function.

"The division's stand is that the function did not get our blessings as it was deemed to be inappropriate given the current political situation," he told malaysiakini .

Over the past months, Mahathir has been criticising his successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's administration over certain decisions.

He also accused his successor of preventing him from meeting Umno members but this has been repeatedly denied by the party leadership.