A Tamil daily known to be aligned to MIC president S Samy Vellu today claimed that malaysiakini had exposed the 'truth' that the veteran politician did not accuse former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad of neglecting the Indian community.

Tamil Nesan made the claim in a scathing front-page commentary which also lashed out at its rival Malaysia Nanban and Samy Vellu's estranged deputy S Subramaniam.

The daily was responding to an audio clip uploaded by malaysiakini yesterday, which contained an extract of Samy Vellu's speech at a party convention in Johor on May 16.

The next day, Malaysia Nanban and another Tamil daily Makkal Osai reported that Samy Vellu had uttered the disputed remarks.

" Makkal Osai and Malaysia Nanban claimed that Samy Vellu at the Johor MIC convention had said that Mahathir did not do anything for the community. However, the audio clip given to malaysiakini proved that he did not say that," Tamil Nesan stated.

"There were no such statements in the audio clip which confirm the claim that Samy Vellu had said that Mahathir did not do anything for the community," it added.

The audio clip uploaded yesterday by malaysiakini had Samy Vellu saying in Tamil:

"Under the Eighth Malaysia Plan (8MP), Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad 'told' (to whom was not specified) that he said, 'I would give this and that' (for the Indian Malaysian community).

"But in the end, ' nehi '... in pure Hindi, it is to say no... in Tamil... did not give".

The daily also suggested that malaysiakini could have obtained the clip from either Malaysia Nanban or Subramaniam. It also questioned the motive as to why the clip was handed to the online news organisation two weeks after the convention.

However, malaysiakini editor-in-chief Steven Gan said that the online daily did not obtain the clip, which is currently making the rounds nationwide, from both of these sources.

" Malaysiakini merely verified the content with Malaysia Nanban news editor M Rajan," he added.

As reported yesterday, malaysiakin i had also notified the MIC president's press secretary E Sivabalan of the clip on Friday and subsequently sent the recording to him via e-mail. However, there has been no response to date.

Subra attacked

Meanwhile, Tamil Nesan , in its no-holds barred front-page commentary, claimed that rival newspaper Malaysia Nanban had become entangled in its own web.

"Hitler once said that if you repeat a lie often enough, it will become the truth. Like Hitler, Malaysia Nanban is also daydreaming that by telling a lie repeatedly, it would become the truth," it added.

The report also claimed that Malaysia Nanban and Makkal Osai , which are said to be aligned to Subramaniam, had deliberately altered Samy Vellu's speech in order to create friction between Mahathir and him.

The daily also lambasted Subramaniam, who had since denied having a hand in this controversy, as a leader who was not concerned about the betterment of the community.

Previously, Samy Vellu had told malaysiakini that Makkal Osai and Malaysia Nanban were serving the agenda of his estranged deputy and denied the reports.

He claimed that Subramaniam's supporters were angered by his decision to throw his weight behind current vice-president G Palanivel for the number two post.

Samy Vellu had also threatened to sue the dailies, which have since defended their reports and rejected any possibility of tendering an apology.

When Malaysia Nanban and Makkal Osai had claimed to have proof, Samy Vellu reportedly said: "Where are the recordings...? Play it. When I did not utter those words how are you going to show records. If someone acts like me then it is a different matter."

[Click on the link to hear an edited version of the clip]