Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who hinted last night that the general election may be called early, was today challenged by former Batu Kawan Umno division vice-head Khairuddin Abu Hassan to dissolve Parliament soon.

"Please tell Najib not to talk too much! If he is very confident and if he is a man, dissolve Parliament and call the 14th general election as soon as possible," Khairuddin said in a statement.

"If he feels that he is very strong, why wait?" he asked, urging Najib not to play dirty by cheating on votes.

At Umno's 71st anniversary celebrations last night, which was thronged by a 80,000-strong crowd, Najib had asked, "I want to ask you all, are we strong enough? Are we ready? Can we dissolve Parliament tomorrow?"

"That is the spirit that we want," Najib said after hearing the crowd's affirmative rejoinder. 

Commenting further, Khairuddin, who is also the People's Declaration Movement coordinator, said Najib could only be "so full of himself" due to the high turnout of Umno members last night.

"Umno members, who were transported to Bukit Jalil Stadium, cannot be benchmarked as the strength of Umno. People were deployed to the assembly," he said.

"As a former division vice-chief, I am an expert on such modus operandi," he said.

"Najib, the village champion, dares only to shout on his own stage. He dares only to criticise Dr Mahathir Mohamad from a distance. He did not dare to show up for the 'Nothing To Hide' forum when asked by Mahathir, but he is now acting like a warrior," Khairuddin said.

"Don't just show your manhood on Umno's stage. If Najib is asked to deploy Umno members to Stadium Bukit Jalil to debate with Mahathir, will he dare to do so?" he asked.

"The most-corrupt Umno president was lucky, as Mahathir did not drive his Proton Iriz to the stadium. If he had driven his car there, surely the Umno president would have fled," Khairuddin added.