Sponsor Denies Arumugam's Resignation Due To BN Threat

SUNGAI PETANI, Feb 17 (Bernama) -- The individual who sponsored V.Arumugam in the March general election last year has denied that the resignation of the Bukit Selambau State Assemblyman was due to threats by certain quarters, particularly the Barisan Nasional (BN).
Zamil Ibrahim, who was also a former Kedah Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Youth chief, claimed that Arumugam had never been offered any reward to resign, on the contrary, he did so because of other reasons.
"After being appointed a member of the (State) Exco for a month, Arumugam complained that he was feeling uncomfortable and was being 'sidelined' by the state government. So, I advised him to leave the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and that's why he resigned.
"He (Arumugam) told me all his problems because I was responsible for fully sponsoring his expenses in terms of the candidate's deposit, campaign cost and preparing his candidacy forms in the last general election," he said when met here on Tuesday.
Zamil, who was also the former Merbok PKR director for strategy, had full power over Arumugam and could ask him to resign at any time, he had never offered Arumugam any payment to do so.
He claimed that the decision to sponsor Arumugam was made privately after PKR advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had chosen a candidate, Saiful Izham Ramli, who was not agreeable to the PKR Merbok, and his candidacy was rejected by the Election Commission (EC) for failing to submit his budget for the 2004 general election.
In the general election on March 8 last year, Arumugam, who contested as an Independent before joining PKR, defeated the BN candidate from MIC, S. Krishnan with a majority of 2,362 votes.
However, he gave up the seat after receiving threats from various quarters, including a RM5 million offer purportedly from an individual representing the BN to switch party.
Arumugam had sent a letter, through a representative, vacating his State Assembly seat and resigning as a State Executive Councillor on Feb 8.

tunku : the dirt is within them but they put all the blame on bn as usual.pkr particularly and pakatan generally are full of dirts and diseases.stay away from stray parties.