DAP stalwart Karpal Singh continued his name-calling tirade in Parliament today by branding Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar a ' celaka ' or rascal.

The Bukit Gelugor MP lashed out at the deputy minister for publicly criticising him (Karpal) for being absent during yesterday's question and answer session.

"We were not given the order paper in advance and I did not know my question was the fourth question.

"I was not given a chance to defend myself yesterday but what this celaka (Noh) did was he went to call a press conference to criticise me," he told the House when debating on the motion of thanks for the Royal Address.

This led Bung Mokhtar Radin (BN-Kinatabangan) to stand up and cite standing orders 36 (4) and 36 (6) against the opposition leader for using unparliamentary words and urged him to retract it

Deputy Speaker Lim Si Cheng then asked Karpal whether he admitted to using such words, to which he replied, "I did, because of the deputy minister's action. He criticised me."

"Where is he (Noh) now? He is also not in the House, I can also say he is irresponsible," he added.

Another deputy speaker Dr Yusof Yacob, who at that point took over the chair, defended Noh on the ground that he had to attend the weekly cabinet meeting in Putrajaya.

"He is just a deputy minister, he is not qualified to attend the cabinet meeting," Karpal retorted.

At this juncture, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz, who oversees parliamentary affairs, walked in.

"See, only when everything is over then he (Nazri) comes to the House," said Karpal, bringing his salvo to an end.

Earlier, the DAP MP took Nazri to task for being absent and declared that his portfolio was redundant.

On Monday, Karpal crossed swords with Bung, saying that the latter behaved like an 'animal' and that he was 'insane'.

Islamic state

Meanwhile, Karpal, in his speech today, also critcised former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad for declaring that Malaysia was an Islamic state on Sept 29, 2001.

He said Mahathir was a doctor by profession and not a lawyer, therefore was ignorant that an Islamic state declaration involved an amendment to the Federal Constitution.

"The ghost came and suddenly changed everything," he added.

This peeved Badruddin Amiruddin (BN-Jerai) who called on Karpal no to tarnish the image of a 'countryman' who had contributed tremendously to Malaysia.

"I am aware of his (Mahathir) contributions but there are negative sides to him as well such as abusing the Internal Security Act during the Operasi Lalang ," replied the opposition MP.

Karpal was among the 117 people detained under the security law during the 1987 Operasi Lalang.