MCA leader Ong Ka Ting lashed out at vice-president Chua Jui Meng for concocting lies that party delegates had been barred from meeting the challenger as the party prepared to vote in its first election in six years.

"The accusation (by Chua) against me and (deputy president) Chan Kong Choy is most unfair and we demand (him) to clear our reputation. All these statements are believed to be a campaign strategy to elicit sympathy among the central delegates," he said.

Ong denied that the party headquarters had "directly or indirectly given any directive, or taken any action, to bar the delegates from meeting with candidates" who are vying for the party polls to be held today.

A total of 2,353 party delegates will begin voting from 12.15pm and the final results are expected to be announced at around 8pm.

A special press conference was held yesterday where Ong and Chan argued that the party headquarters had taken the decision to publish the full list of the delegates on its website.

They argued that almost all candidates have utilised their own personal contacts to try to meet with party delegates and this included telephoning them and sending SMS.

It is reported that only three Chinese-language newspapers - Nanyang Siang Pau , China Press and Sin Chew Daily - were invited to the press conference.

All three newspapers gave prominent coverage to the press conference. Both Nanyang and China Press are owned by MCA while Sin Chew has close ties to the party.

Chua, who is challenging Ong for the party top post, has long claimed that he faced restrictions in his bid to meet with the delegates after they were told not to do so by party leaders.

Ong argued that Chua had access to all party delegates.

He said that he was aware that Chua had called the delegates directly as well as sending them his manifesto and other publicity material.

Chinese press attacked

The MCA president also attack another Chinese newspaper, Oriental Daily, for distributing its July 25 edition - which carried an interview with Chua - to party delegates at the conference venue in Wisma MCA yesterday.

"It is clear that Oriental Daily is siding with (Chua) Jui Meng by distributing an old interview in which he claimed that he faced various restrictions in his effort to meet central delegates.

"We try to not to debate openly on issues that had been raised since last month in order to maintain harmony but when we saw such action of distributing 'old news', we felt that the delegates should not be misled by such bias reporting.

"In this critical hour of the election campaign, we felt strongly that the delegates must be treated fairly and that they listen to a balance explanation."

Ong also deny that he is 'copying' Chua's manifesto by publishing his own report card a few days ago.

"This is yet another wicked accusation in this party polls."

In another development, Nanyang Press Holdings chairman Wong See Wah also accused Oriental Daily of trying to play up the controversial takeover by MCA of two Chinese language newspapers - Nanyang and China Press - before the party polls.

Oriental Daily reported yesterday that the share value of Nanyang Press Holdings had taken a dip after the takeover in 2001.

Wong accused Oriental Daily of harbouring a sinister motive by publishing such news in order to run down Nanyang's image.

He claimed that after MCA bought the two newspapers, Nanyang had made a profit of RM21.6 million compare to losses of around RM1.6 million before the takeover.