Yuktes Vijay, a former legal aide of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's lawyer Sankara Nair, has been caught in a racism row after a controversial Chinese New Year greeting status he posted on his Facebook page on Thursday.

Yuktes, who has offered himself as an independent candidate for the Kajang by-election against Anwar, made his Chinese New Year greetings to only five percent of the Chinese community who he said are "good and grateful".

"To all the DAP and other Chinese who are in the same direction as them, please drink a lot and drive your cars to Genting. If you manage to reach there, please gamble as though today is the last day of the world.

"If you manage to wake up tomorrow, it is fated, we can't change anything, we have to fight the racist attitude for one more year. To my family which are the five percent, you know I love you all," he posted on his Facebook late on Thursday.

'I hate the 95 percent because they voted for DAP'

His status has been shared more than 40 times since then, and many have expressed unhappiness with the status which has been perceived as being racist in categorising the Chinese community.

However, Yuktes, who also served briefly as an aide to current Deputy Education Minister II P Kamalanathan after leaving Anwar's legal team, defended his posting and claimed it is unfair to label him a racist.

Currently running an NGO, Yuktes said he should not be labelled as a racist because he "hates" DAP and the 95 percent of the Chinese community who voted for them.

"Can I be called racist when the five percent who support me are also from the same race?" he asked in subsequent Facebook posting late last night.

"I hate the 95 percent of the composition (Chinese) because they support DAP, not because they are from that composition (Chinese)," he said.

"I hate DAP and that will not change," Yuktes said.