MCA Youth chief Chong Sin Woon today trained his guns against former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad for labelling MCA as a "chauvinist party", a label he once reserved for the DAP.

Chong noted that Mahathir had claimed MCA was a chauvinist party because its anthem was in Chinese compared to the DAP, which has its anthem in the Malay language.

However, Chong said a key distinction between MCA and DAP was that the former does not inflame racial sentiments.

Chong cited allegedly inflammatory speeches by DAP leaders such as Lim Kit Siang, Lim Guan Eng and Nga Kor Ming.

"They (DAP) claimed that Chinese and Indians are second class citizens. All policies only benefit Malays and Bumiputera.

"They sow hatred in Chinese and Malay relations but now talk about saving Malaysia.

"The young generation will not believe them. We will reject Pakatan Harapan in the next general election," Chong told delegates during the 53rd MCA Youth annual general assembly (AGM) at its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

Chong also pointed out that Mahathir, who was prime minister for 22 years, had officiated MCA's AGM for decades and questioned how he suddenly had a change of heart on whether MCA was racist or not.

"When Mahathir was prime minister and BN chairperson for 22 years, he came to Wisma MCA to officiate (our AGM). At that time, he labelled DAP as a chauvinist and racist party.

"But Mahathir is now hugging Lim Kit Siang. Now he says DAP is not chauvinist but MCA is because DAP's anthem is in Malay while MCA's anthem is in Chinese.

"Mahathir had officiated the MCA AGM for decades, he can't possibly not know that our anthem is in Chinese. He is out of political capital that he needs to stab his former allies in the back," said Chong, who delivered his speech in Malay.

Chong said while MCA's anthem may be in Chinese, it was a party that considered the interest of all races.

"Mahathir's criticism of MCA is untrue. We take care of all (races), unlike DAP which inflames racial sentiments," he said.

Chong said that BN was a platform that is inclusive, pointing out that the partners were allowed to debate the merits of the controversial proposed amendments to the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965.

"What is important is the BN platform allows all components parties to discuss and hold a dialogue in an intellectual manner without being taken in by sentiment," he said.

Following fierce objections by non-Umno parties in BN to increase the syariah punishments, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak assured that Putrajaya will not take over the proposed amendments initiated by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.

However, PAS is still pushing the proposed amendments through Parliament on its own.