KULIM: Padang Serai MP N. Gobalakrishnan has quit PKR, saying that the party leadership, especially, adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has been deaf to grievances.
He will continue to serve the people as an independent MP until the next general election.
He also plans to form a non-governmental organisation to fight for the people’s rights, he told a press conference in Lunas on Saturday.
Gobala, a former MIC Youth leader and founding member of PKR in 1999, has been slamming the party leadership for weeks and was issued a showcause letter recently.
He said Saturday he chose to quit because the leadership was planning to remove him.
“So, I thought it would be wiser for me to quit the party now rather than being forcibly removed.”
He reiterated his allegation that Anwar’s blue-eyed boy Azmin Ali (deputy president) was now in total control of the party.
“Azmin’s boys are predicting that Anwar will go to jail in two or three months time so he (Azmin) will take control of the party in the absence of Anwar.
“Azmin is powerful and has the money to control the party. This was evident during the recent party elections,” he said.
He also alleged that Anwar was practicing a divide-and-rule policy where Indians in the party were concerned by appointing his lawyer N. Surendran as a vice-president to look into Indian affairs when there were far better qualified Indians in the party.
Gobala reiterated that he has lost confidence in Anwar, who had long advocated reforms but failed to deliver it in his own party.
He said he has also lost confidence in the ability of Pakatan Rakyat to capture Putrajaya as the Opposition leader (Anwar) could not even settle his internal party matters.
He denied that his announcement on Saturday had anything to do with Sunday’s Tenang state by-election in Johor but was made due to the political developments within the party and that he had just returned from an overseas trip.
He also pledged that he would not be joining any other party, including MIC.
He also blamed Anwar for failing to resolve the problems in Perak, which led to the loss of the state to Barisan Nasional and resignation of several other PKR elected representatives in Kedah and Penang. Asked if any of his supporters would leave PKR, he said it was up to them to decide
