A heated argument in the Dewan Rakyat turned decidedly hostile today when Tajuddin Abdul Rahman (BN-Pasir Salak), best known for calling M Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh Barat) a "bloody bastard", again escaped punishment when he called the latter "keling".
The melee erupted when Deputy Speaker Ronald Kiandee (left) allowed the Dewan Rakyat to debate on Teo Nie Cheng's (DAP-Serdang) motion for a RM10 pay cut on the salary of Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.
Teo wanted the pay cut because according to her, the minister had failed to fulfil his promise to build six new Chinese schools before the March 8 election.
"The minister had only promised this to garner the votes of the Chinese community," blasted Teo.
Following this, Ronald allocated ten minutes each to five MPs from both sides of the House to debate on the country's education policy.
The debate then focused on the alleged unfair treatment most vernacular schools in the country received in terms of financial allocations, which government MPs argued was untrue.
Pakatan MPs alleged that the education ministry, under its Umno minister has long practised racial discrimination against vernacular schools.
"The Indian and Tamil schools in this country have to suffer under the partial and lopsided education policy practiced by the Umno-led government and this is evident by the poor conditions of Tamil schools," said Kulasegaran.
Puad Zarkashi (BN-Batu Pahat) disagreed, blasting the motion on the pay cut as a political gimmick.
"I personally have done a lot for a Chinese school in my constituency and what is most important is their education as a way to elevate them from poverty so don't politicise this matter. This motion is nothing but a political gimmick," he said.
Argument turns ugly
The heated debate, however, turned ugly when Tajuddin who was clearly annoyed by the Ipoh Barat MP, called Kulasegaran "keling", a derogatory term for Indians.
Pressure from Pakatan MPs led to Ronald demanding that the Pasir Salak MP (left) retract his statement, which the latter reluctantly did.
"It is so easy for him (Tajuddin) to make offensive remarks and then be let off the hook. The speaker should take sterner action against him," Kulasegaran said.
Ronald, however, said a retraction would suffice.
"Under the parliamentary standing order, it is sufficient that Pasir Salak has apologised and retracted his statement so there is no need to take action against him," he said.
Tajuddin in the past caused an uproar when he escaped punishment for calling Kulasegaran a "bloody bastard".
Just like his colleague today, Deputy Speaker Wan Junaidi Jaafar had also felt that it was not necessary to punish Tajuddin as he had apologised and retracted his statement.
The motion for the RM10 pay cut was also defeated in the House with more BN backbenchers present than the Pakatan MPs - malaysiakini.com
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