Former MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek has accused the veteran DAP leader Lim Kit Siang of deliberately misleading the people by twisting his words.

According to Chua, he had never said that Umno is like a father to MCA, but instead merely told Malaysiakini in an interview that no one thought of questioning the source of funds at the time.

“I said MCA did receive some money from the (then) prime minister (Najib Abdul Razak) during the 13th general election, and the prime minister was the BN chairperson.

“So no one thought at the time of asking where the money came from, and I said it’s like if within your family your father gives you money, you don’t ask your father, ‘Where did you steal the money from?'”

Chua was speaking to reporters at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today after launching his autobiography Like Me or Hate Me: Rising from the Political Ashes.

Najib had allegedly distributed about RM470 million prior to the 13th general election, of which MCA supposedly received RM16.5 million.

Read more: Najib's account - political beneficiaries who 'got a cut' revealed

Chua told Malaysiakini on Thursday that he had no way of knowing the source of the funds, and pointed out that the 1MDB scandal had not become news at the time.

Lim, however, said yesterday that MCA should have known to ask about the source of funds, and pointed out that 1MDB had already become an issue in 2013.

The DAP supremo also said part of MCA's problem was that its relationship to Umno had devolved from an equal partner to being akin to a father-and-son relationship.

As Chua said at the book launch today, he had pointed out that BN component parties were on equal footing with Umno as early as 2011. 

He went on to attribute Lim's long political career to his adeptness at "spinning" and retracting his statements after the fact.

“Now that Lim is in a ruling party, that means he is a government leader. So I hope he doesn’t act like someone from the opposition; he shouldn’t,” he added.

On another matter, Chua denied timing the launch of Like Me or Hate Me to coincide with the MCA election on Nov 4.

The former president, who has been openly critical of the party he used to lead, said that he has no vested interest in election beyond ensuring that the grassroots picks leaders who are “braver and more courageous than the current leadership.”