An MCA central committee member, Wong Mook Leong, was heckled by delegates at the party assembly this afternoon when he sought clarification from party president Dr Ling Liong Sik regarding his "resignation".

Ling recently announced that he was resigning from the transport minister post to make way for vice-president Chan Kong Choy to be promoted to full minister, but later reversed his decision.

Wong referred to newspaper clippings to show proof that when Ling met Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad offering to resign, Mahathir told the press that the issue was not related to any minister's post.

Wong claimed that Ling's explanation earlier on the issue did not tally with the news reports, but before he could continue, some delegates led by an unidentified delegate from Perak shouted "boo, boo" to indicate their displeasure at Wong for raising the issue.

While a small section of delegates present wanted Wong to continue, the majority shouted at him to stop, with the Perak delegate saying it was "reply time" and "not question time".

After the assembly adjourned, Wong was confronted by the "emotional" delegate from Perak who rained abusive words at Wong, a party veteran who has served several terms in the MCA central committee.

In his closing remarks, Ling did not touch on Wong's query.

Later at a press conference, Ling remarked that "Maybe Wong did not understand my speech in Mandarin", and declined to comment further.

On the circulation of poison-pen letters connecting him with fugitive tycoon Soh Chee Wen, Ling said such circulation of "rumours" were unhealthy.