Gerakan president Dr Lim Keng Yaik today slammed local dailies for making him feel like an "idiot" by misinterpreting his comments on the much-debated proposal to teach Science and Mathematics in English.

"Chinese newspapers gave the impression that I was against (the proposal), Malay newspapers said that I was for it, and English newspapers suggested that I was an opportunist and chauvinist.

"You want to sell newspapers, it's fine, but not at my expense. People must be saying now that Keng Yaik is a mad doctor," he said.

The Gerakan leader, who is also primary industries minister, was speaking at a press conference after opening a forum entitled 'Education for the K-Economy' organised by the party-financed Socio-Economic Development and Research Institute (Sedar) in Kuala Lumpur.

Describing the coverage of his statements as "heart-sickening", Lim said: "We tried to take a simple non-racial approach to push down all racial sentiments. Even then, it is digested in different ways [by the newspapers] until I can't recognise it anymore.

"Don't take it out of context. You'll make me feel like an idiot, and I do feel like an idiot now," he said.

The minister said he was disappointed with the increasingly less room for public discussion and debate on issues these days.