My one-day visit to the Bentong parliamentary constituency, covering Perting new village and Karak town, to encourage all eligible voters in the constituency to register themselves by this month if they want to be able to cast their vote in the 14GE if held in September, attracted considerable MCA attention, with MCA putting up posters and buntings all over the constituency attacking me.
This did not happen during my previous visits to Bentong, when it was held by the two previous MPs – Tan Sri Chan Siang Sun and Tan Sri Lim Ah Lek.
Does this mean that the incumbent MP for Bentong Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, unlike his two previous predecessors, has reason to be afraid of my visit to Bentong – resulting in the posters and bunters attacking me for visiting Bentong!
Bentong is one of the most fortunate parliamentary constituencies in the country, as it had been a Minister’s constituency for over four decades – when the first MP for Bentong, Tan Sri Chan Siang Sun was MP ifor 1959 to 1989 and Lim Ah Lek became the MP for Bentong from 1989 to 1999. Liow Tiong Lai is the third MP for Bentong since 1999.
As for the past four decades, Bentong had been a Ministerial parliamentary constituency, everyone would have expected Bentong to be a model parliamentary constituency with the best educational, health and socio-economic infrastructures and facilities in the country, with a very high employment rate while the people of Bentong enjoying the highest percentage of land ownership in the country.
But is Bentong known throughout the country as a model parliamentary constituency where the electorate get the best educational and socio-economic attention from the government – with land for the landless, jobs for the jobless, the best schools and educational institutions in the country while the people of Bentong given the best health and medical attention by the government anywhere in the country?
But this is not the case. In Bentong, the landless remain landless and the people even have to go to other hospitals in the State to see specialists – although Liow Tiong Lai was at one time the Minister for Health!
As Bentong had been a Ministerial parliamentary constituency for the past four decades, the people and voters of Bentong are entitled to demand Bentong being turned into a model parliamentary constituency with the best educational and socio-economic infrastructures and facilities in the country.
[Speech (2) at the DAP Bentong “Voters Registration” campaign in Karak, Pahang on Tuesday, 21st March 2017 at 9 pm]
