DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said he went public on the recent spat with PKR grassroots leaders at Sungai Way over a Deepavali bazaar, because he was hoping that PKR leaders would censure their members’ actions.

He said this after a long pause, when reporters asked him on why the matter was so public, instead of being handled internally.

“We were hoping that the PKR leaders will, […] will ensure that none of their members or grassroot leaders will behave is such a way,” he said choosing his words carefully.

He told reporters this when met outside the Petaling Jaya police district headquarters today.

Pua added that it is now up to PKR to take the necessary action, but he conceded that there is nothing he could do if the party decides against that.

In the meantime, he said DAP will continue to assist the traders at Sungai Way.

He assured that relations between DAP and PKR, and between himself and Subang MP Sivarasa Rasiah ( photo ), remain intact.

“As far as I’m concerned, the government is still standing. It is an issue that needs to be resolved in Sungai Way and (Petaling Jaya City Council; MBPJ). It doesn’t affect ties between us […]

“He (Sivarasa) is now seated next to me in Parliament. We shook hands. So it’s okay,” he said.

He also pointed out that parliamentarians from both PKR and DAP had held up placards that read ‘Where is RM2.6 billion?’ after Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s budget speech on Friday, referring to the political donations that he allegedly received.

'Can't ignore grouses'

Sivarasa had responded to Pua’s statement urging him to leave the matter to the Petaling Jaya mayor to resolve, to which Pua replied that he cannot ignore the grouses of his constituents.

The Sungai Way spat started on Oct 15, when Pua and several others visited a new Deepavali bazaar site and received a hostile reception.

Pua had attempted to hold a press conference at the site, but was interrupted by the PKR grassroots leaders and traders protesting there in front of press cameras.

Several PKR grassroots leaders on Oct 17 lodged a police report against Pua for allegedly defaming them by calling them "gangsters".

They were referring to a Facebook post from Pua following the site visit.

“I discovered that the traders who have obtained licences to trade from MBPJ were stopped from trading by a group of gangsters led by a Samy and a Murali,” Pua had said in the Facebook post.

Pua was at the Petaling Jaya police district headquarters this evening to give his statement over the police reports lodged against him.

He said the reports also accuse him of publishing a post on the microblogging service Twitter that Indians are ‘thugs and ‘pariahs’, which he had previously denied .

He said he told the police he only referred to those stopping the traders from operating as thugs, and the purported screenshot of the Twitter posting did not come from him.

Pua added that the Sungai Way police chief had also lodged a separate police report complaining of an illegal assembly following the incident, and he was being questioned as a witness over the report.