GEORGE TOWN: Penang Gerakan’s “Punjabi boy” Baljit Singh will not resort to name-calling just to get even with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz.
Baljit, who heads the Penang Gerakan’s legal and human rights bureau, said he would always maintain his political professionalism and mannerism by making only fair and just comments.
He said he would consistently make issue-based comments, and would never personalise politics.
“I will not call him (Nazri) a Bugis boy or any other names. I will not emulate his political style.
“Let him have the privilege,” he told FMT today in response to Nazri’s “Punjabi boy” rant against him yesterday.
Nazri slammed Baljit for urging Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his Cabinet to take individual religious vows to prove that they are of impeccable moral standing.
“Tell this Punjabi boy, where is he coming from? Is he from BN or is he from the opposition?” he told FMT yesterday.
On Wednesday, Baljit said BN leaders must take the vow to prove that they were better than Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Baljit, a laywer by profession, was responding to the latest sex video scandal which implicated PKR supremo Anwar.
He said he was surprised on why Nazri was reacting to his statement “as if the minister has ants in his pants”.
‘ I have my own political principles’
Reminding Nazri that Gerakan was an equal partner in the Barisan Nasional (BN), Baljit insisted that he had every right to fair comments on any issue.
He said he would continue to voice out the general sentiments and consensus of the people seeking the truth on any issue.
He added that he would not want to be a mere “yes man” to Nazri or any others, but would insist on calling “black is black and white is white”.
“I have my own political principles and values.
“I don’t want to regret later and feel guilty by association with something that was not right,” Baljit said.
He also rebutted Nazri’s argument that “those who wished to become prime minister must have high moral standards… We are not saying we are angelic or anything like that. It is about the (sex) video. I don’t have a video, so why should I take a vow?”
Baljit said as a senior minister, Nazri should know that moral standards applied to all, be it from Pakatan Rakyat or BN, and regardless of whether there was a sex video.
“Is Nazri trying to say that if you are not aspiring to be the prime minister, you need not show high moral grounds?
“Is he saying he is standing on a high moral ground just because there was no sex video clips on him?
“Sex video is not the sole yardstick to measure morality,” he said.
Baljit also chided Nazri for linking the sex video to Anwar, saying the de facto law minister’s interpretation of the law was “flawed”.
He pointed out that Nazri had mocked the basic essence of the law that emphasised that “one is innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt”.
The minister also attacked Baljit for criticising the former’s statement that Anwar’s wife and PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was not the right person to identify the man in the video.
“If this Punjabi is smart enough, he should realise that there is a conflict of interest,” Nazri said.
Baljit returned fire, saying that conflict of interest was not the issue given that a wife is always the best witness to identify her husband’s body. - FMT
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