IN WHAT can be deemed as the battle of apple polishers a.k.a kaki bodek, UMNO suoreme council member Datuk Isham Jalil has taken a pot shot at former UMNO Selangor chairman Tan Sri Noh Omar that it was him who excelled as an apple polisher.
“As far as I can remember, when he (Noh Omar) wanted to be a minister in the past, he bodek (lobbied) (former) PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak and even I was not spared from his bodek. That time, I was working in the Prime Minister’s Office,” penned the former UMNO information chief Isham who was then Najib’s special officer.
Isham further chastised the former six-term Tanjung Karang MP for being ungrateful to UMNO who has groomed him from being a MP to becoming a minister.
“Now only a few months after he requested to be sacked from UMNO, he has started to condemn and humiliate UMNO like kacang lupakan kulit (someone who forgot his roots). Just because he wants to run in the (state) election against UMNO,” claimed Isham.
“I would like to remind TS Noh Omar that UMNO had contributed greatly to him. Don’t forget that.”
Prior to that, it was the former Entrepreneur Development and Cooperative minister who fired the first salvo by accusing Isham and fellow UMNO supreme council member Datuk Lokman Noor Adam to be the party’s prominent apple polishers.
He went on to question the duo (Lokman is now UMNO’s communications director) for speaking about the voice of the grassroots after being defeated in the UMNO polls.
“I have loved UMNO since my days as a student in the UK,” he told Berita Harian. “Now, UMNO is only left with apple polishers.”
In his FB post, Noh has also related how he had tried to make Tanjug Karang a stronghold of UMNO-Barisan Nasional (BN) over the past 30 years “but if there are outsiders who want to destroy UMNO-BN, then I welcome that wish to be realised by making Tanjung Karang a stronghold of Perikatan Nasional (PN)”.
This has led to a few news portals reporting that he would be a choice PN candidate in the upcoming state polls which he promptly denied.
“I want to clarify that to become a candidate of any party, only the party’s leadership is able to determine who is qualified to be its candidate,” he noted. “Because till today, I have yet to become a member of any political party, therefore it’s not accurate to say that I’ll become a candidate in the forthcoming state election.” – May 3, 2023
