Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon drew brickbats yet again from his Barisan Nasional component party members, this time from outspoken Kalabakan parliamentarian Abdul Ghapur Salleh.

NONE In his debate on the Supply Bill 2010, Abdul Ghapur fired his first salvo against Koh, who just last week was criticised by Umno's Sri Gading parliamentarian Mohamad Aziz.

Abdul Ghapur (left) called into question Koh's competency as a minister overseeing the government's Key Performance Index (KPI) as he could not "even pronounce the name of my constituency area".

"I interjected when he (Koh) was speaking during the morning's question and answer session. He referred to me as MP ‘ kebelakangan ' (backwards) instead of Kalabakan.

"If he does not even know what my constituency is, then how can he take care of the KPIs for the rest of the ministers?" asked Abdul Ghapur, drawing laughter all round.

Abdul Ghapur, however, said he would ‘not question' Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's appointment of Koh, as this was the PM's prerogative.

During a debate on the Supply Bill last week, Mohamad Aziz said Koh failed in his task and blamed him for losing Penang state when he contested in the last general election.

His comments drew flak from Gerakan members who protested and demanded Mohamad retract his remarks and apologise to Koh.

However, Mohamad was unrepentent, and said had no reason to apologise as he had ‘done nothing wrong'.

Looking for ‘publicity'

Gerakan was continuously put under the hot seat today when Abdul Ghapur said that the party had made ‘unfavourable statements' during its annual general meeting over the weekend.

One of them was Gerakan Youth's resolution, suggesting Gerakan leave the ruling coalition.

"Why didn't the party filter this suggested resolution before it was published? This shows that they wanted publicity and wanted the people to go back to supporting them," said Abdul Ghapur.

"Gerakan almost gulung tikar (folded up) when they only won two parliamentary seats in the peninsula. This shows no gerakan (movement) at all," he added.

At this juncture, Mohamad interjected, recalling that Gerakan Wanita chief and deputy minister from Grik, Tan Lian Hoe, had once "hurt" the Malays by calling them pendatang (immigrants).

"I'm sure in the next general election, the Malays will reject them. In Grik, there were a lot of Malays who voted for her. If she lost in the next election, this would mean the Malays were hurt by her comments," said Mohamad.

However, Abdul Ghapur believed that Tan would apologise as she would "lose all her Malay votes if she did not and this would make the opposition happy."

On the same note, Abdul Ghapur also criticised MCA for a survey it published on its official website, asking the readers whether the party should quit BN.

"In the survey, 75 percent said yes to it. Not only was this was encouraged by the people, but by the party leadership itself.

"So, I would not want any component party in BN to backstab each other...people would see me speaking like an opposition, but no, I'm just voicing out grievances," he said.