COMMENT | Thank you, Tony Pua.

When Pua announced his retirement from frontline politics last night at the Damansara DAP fundraising dinner, I didn’t dare to look at him for too long, for I was afraid that I couldn’t control my tears.

Although his retirement plan was known to some of us much earlier, it was still sad when the moment finally arrived.

Ten years ago, Pua brought (or we like to joke, “conned”) me into politics. I was young and innocent, and didn’t exactly know what I’d plunged myself into.

Before GE13, he taught me how to campaign and brought me around for forum/ceramah when I still had stage fright and get extremely stressed whenever I needed to give political speeches.

I served my first term in public office in the state seat of Damansara Utama, which was under his parliamentary constituency - Petaling Jaya Utara (it was later named Damansara in 2018).

In the early days after I got elected, he taught me how to put up soalan Dewan and write media statements. In fact, my first few media statements and first submission of soalan Dewan were vetted by him.

Although I always called him boss, he never exerted...