Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said he would not "go crawling" to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to seek advice if he was the Umno's acting president.

The Gua Musang MP appeared to be referring to Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the acting Umno president who met Mahathir in Putrajaya on June 6.

Mahathir later explained that Zahid had sought his advice on how to administer Umno. 

Zahid will be contesting for the party's top post, while Tengku Razaleigh earlier gave his strongest hint yet that he might run for the presidency in the June 30 party election.

Asked about Zahid's visit and on some who described Umno as weak when its leader had to seek advice from a rival party, Tengku Razaleigh declined to comment on the visit .

However, he said: "Why should I (go and meet Mahathir)? I head a different party and I know that he is not in favour of (advising Umno). He left Umno with (Pakatan Harapan de facto leader) Anwar Ibrahim.

"You can compute that yourself, why must I go crawling to him?" he said. 

Last week, Tengku Razaleigh invited Umno parliamentarians for a buka puasa event at his office, which was also attended by Zahid.

Tengku Razaleigh said he did not speak on party election with Zahid and the latter did not ask him not to contest the top post.