The prolonged "push" for unity talks between Umno and PAS seems to have hit a raw nerve with Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, who chided a front-page article in Utusan Malaysia for making his party look "desperate".

khairy jamaluddin kj interview 190310 The avid tweeter packed a mean punch within the 140-word limit, lamenting that the issue has been blown out of proportion by the Umno-owned publication.

" Saya rasa cukuplah dengan usaha & artikel perpaduan Umno-PAS, Cerita pg1 Utusan hari ini Nampak macam kita desperate sangat (I think the efforts and articles on Umno-PAS unity have been enough, Utusan 's page one story makes us look so desperate)," Khairy ( left )  said on Twitter .

There is nothing new about efforts to unite the country's two Malay-majority parties, though it has so far failed to materialise despite interest from both sides.

This latest push for unity talks started early this month with Malay newspapers playing up the issue on a near-daily basis.

It did not help that certain quarters in PAS showed a muted interest in a possible merger with the BN's largest component party.

nasrudin hassan tantawi pas youth leader interview 160609 01 PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan ( right ) said the opposition party need not be "defensive" when presented with such a proposition, though he stressed that it should be conditional.

"We (PAS) do not need to reject the offer. Accept the offer for the unity of the ummah because we do not want division, but it is mandatory for us to set Islam as our condition," he said in his blog today.

Nasrudin noted that even PAS spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat had once said that should Umno embrace Islam as its core principle, there would be no need for PAS.

"However, I have a slightly different take on this. If I may say, 'if Umno accepts Islam as the party's core principle, then disband Umno and join PAS', because by then the goals of Umno and PAS would be the same."