Selangor Umno chief denies claims that state party revival not in line with central leadership’s
KUALA LUMPUR, April 22 — There is no truth to the claim by Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz that the revival of the party at the state level is not in line with the theme set by the central leadership, according to Selangor Umno chief Datuk Megat Zulkarnain Omardin.
In an interview with Utusan Malaysia published today, Megat said that there is no way he would steer Selangor Umno or Barisan Nasional (BN) in a way that is contrary to the federal leadership considering he is also the political secretary to the party president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who is also deputy prime minister.
“I believe Tengku Zafrul was referring to the decision to return the 20 positions of local government’s councillors and return 75 positions of village heads to the state government.
“When the decision was made, Tengku Zafrul was the only one not present.
“And when we made a presentation of the decision to address the state relations to the party president all 21 department heads who were present reached a unanimous decision. We did not leave it to Ahmad Zahid to make the decision,” Megat was quoted as saying.
Tengku Zafrul was the former Selangor Umno treasurer.
Megat said that Umno has been working hard to restore the party’s strength right down to the grassroots level.
“I have been in Umno for decades. I saw when Umno became the dominant party in Selangor, we won 54 seats out of 56.
“I also witnessed Umno’s defeat from 54 to 20 seats. I was also with Umno when the seats were reduced from 20 to 12, then eight, four and finally two seats now when I’m the chief.
“We don’t have a lot of funds like before and our position is not strong. With this deficiency, I took over Selangor Umno, but it did not weaken my spirit or that of my friends,” he was quoted as saying.
On Tengku Zafrul’s resignation from his party post, Megat believed that the reason could be that holding the investment trade and industry ministry portfolio made it hard for the former to commit as he needed to follow the prime minister overseas often.
“As long as I can remember, he was only able to attend the meeting once, after that he was unable to attend and the meeting was represented by the division deputy chief.
“I think it’s settled. We accept his resignation as Selangor Umno treasurer,” he was quoted as saying.
