GE14 | BN's Shah Alam candidate Azhari Shaari has admitted that he was present during a controversial protest where a severed cow's head was paraded at the entrance of the Selangor state secretariat building.

The 2009 demonstration was to protest the relocation of the Sri Maha Mariamman Hindu temple to a Muslim-majority area in Shah Alam.

Cows are deemed sacred by the Hindu community.

However, Azhari stressed that his presence at the protest was not as a participant but a spectator, according to The Star.

"I have maintained this in court. I merely went for the gathering and was not charged with sedition, only illegal assembly," he was quoted as saying during a walkabout at a night market in Shah Alam last night.

Azhari was responding to pictures of the cow head protest circulated on social media in which he was circled out.

He was fined RM1,000 or one-month jail in default after pleading guilty to the illegal assembly charge in 2010.

Azhari said the incident happened before he became the Shah Alam Umno division chief.

The report quoted Azhari as saying that the temple community will be meeting him on Thursday to explain the matter and endorse him.

"They know that I was merely a spectator and did not organise the event nor did I carry out the deed," he said.

Azhari is going up in a three-cornered fight against Harapan's Khalid Abdul Samad and PAS' Mohd Zuhdi Marzuki.

In the last general election, BN's candidate Zulkifli Nordin, too, had a run in with the Hindu community when he allegedly belittled their deities in a speech, a month before he became a candidate. He later apologised for his speech.

Zulkifli was defeated by Khalid, who was at the time with PAS, by a 10,939-vote majority.

For the coming election, Shah Alam comprises 76 percent Malays, 15 percent Chinese and 14 percent Indians.