NUBE shoots return fire at Subra

The union denies that it is politically motivated and throws back the accusation at the BN candidate for Segamat.

PETALING JAYA: The National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) today hit back at human resources minister S Subramaniam for attributing political motivation to its protests against him.

“We deny Subramaniam’s claim that our pickets against him and three banks are politically motivated,” NUBE leader J Solomon said in a press release.

“The allegation has no basis. The only politically motivated gathering is the illegal demonstration conducted rowdily by his supporters.

“It is ironic that Subramaniam charges us to be politically motivated when we are seen to be protesting against him. Yet at the same time he proudly heralds a list of unions he claims are supporting him.”

Subramaniam, who is MIC’s deputy president and its candidate for the Segamat parliament seat, alleged yesterday that NUBE was aligned to Pakatan Rakyat.

Inspector General of Police Ismail Omar also said that the union was biased. He noted that Subramaniam’s opponent in the election, PKR’s Chua Jui Meng, was at the picket held in the evening yesterday.

Solomon said Chua’s presence at the demonstration did not mean that NUBE supported his candidacy. “Chua came, shook hands and left,” he told FMT.

Subramaniam and Chua are in a straight fight for Segamat, which has 47,115 voters—46% Chinese, 44% Malays and 10% Indians.

In 2008, Subramaniam beat DAP’s Pang Hock Leong by nearly 3,000 votes.

NUBE had planned to picket every day from May 1 to today, but ended the series yesterday, saying it could no longer bear “constant harassment” by MIC supporters.

“On May 1, Subramaniam’s brother and two other Indian men harassed us while we were picketing,” Solomon said. “Yesterday, our assistant secretary general, Ms A Karuna, was assaulted.”

On the first day of picketing, he added, about 70 people aligned to Subramaniam harassed the demonstrators.

There were two demonstrations yesterday. At least the evening protest was observed by policemen from the Light Strike Force.

Solomon said he was interrogated at a local police station and the Segamat police chief told him to end the series.

“He said that if we don’t call off the picket he would have to use force.”

Solomon also said he had made three police reports. One was against Dr Subramaniam and his brother, another was about a banner that had a list of unions supporting the caretaker minister, and the third complained of intimidation by the police.