IT was Khairy Jamaluddin himself who had asked to contest the Sungai Buloh seat in the forthcoming 15th General Election (GE15), revealed Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
The UMNO president said nobody had forced or urged the caretaker health minister to contest in the parliamentary seat which has been held by PKR since 2008.
“[Khairy] was the one who asked for the opportunity to contest there and I fulfilled his request,” Zahid was reported as saying by Berita Harian when quizzed about BN’s decision to field Khairy in the PKR stronghold.
The former UMNO Youth chief, who has held the Rembau parliamentary seat since 2008, previously said that he was asked not to defend the Rembau seat to make way for UMNO president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan.
Yesterday, Mohamad – better known among his peers as Tok Mat – clarified that he did not push Khairy out from Negri Sembilan, claiming that Khairy was told about Rembau plans way back in 2018.
He had reportedly told Khairy that as UMNO deputy president, he will be taking on a role in federal-level politics while Khairy had in turn agreed and requested that Mohamad find him a “suitable seat” to contest in the upcoming national polls.
“That was the agreement between the two of us, we didn’t have a problem so why do others want to be nosy?” Mohamad told his audience at Taman Widuri Indah, a local neighbourhood in Rembau.
Last week Khairy acknowledged that he will be facing the toughest fight in his political career in a seven-cornered contest for the Sungai Buloh parliamentary seat.
However, he is not taking it as a disadvantage, but as a challenge to bring BN’s fight to the urban area.
In 2018, PKR’s R. Sivarasa won the Sungai Buloh seat with a majority of 26,634 votes. He is not defending the seat for health reasons. – Nov 10, 2022
