The anti-Anwar Ibrahim tirade unleashed in recent weeks by MIC President S Samy Vellu, joined by the chief of the new formed Malaysian Indian United Party, KS Nallakaruppan, has drawn a scathing response from PKR supreme council member N Gobalakrishnan.

Gobalakrishnan, a staunch canvasser of Indian support for PKR, said Nallakaruppan’s latest salvo against the former deputy prime minister in today’s editions of Tamil Nesan and Makkal Osai was particularly hard to take because of what the MIUP leader has said in public and in private about Anwar in the past.

Among other criticisms, Nallakaruppan was reported by the two Tamil dailies as lambasting Anwar for hoodwinking the Indians by presently showing sympathy for their plight when he had nothing to display as proof of that empathy while he was the powerful finance minister and deputy prime minister from when he was in the government.

In remarks to Malaysiakini, Gobalakrishnan said he found this broadside by Nallakaruppan particularly galling because of what the latter had told him after one budget presentation in the 1990s by the then Finance Minister Anwar that exempted temple products from tax.

“He told me that Anwar had called him before tabling the budget to talk about the tax exemption. Nallakaruppan said that Anwar would call him before presenting the budget to parliament to chat with him about aspects of the budget that would help the Indian community,” said Gobalakrishnan.

In all, Anwar tabled eight budgets in Parliament between 1990 and 1997. He was sacked from the cabinet and Umno in September 1998, two months before what would have been his ninth budget.

Gobalakrishnan further disclosed that in 2004, he and Nallakaruppan met up in Munich while both were visiting Anwar who was in the Bavarian capital for surgery by a renowned orthopedic surgeon for a back problem.

“I remember what Nallakaruppan told me in Munich – that he believed Anwar would be the saviour of the Indian community in Malaysia,” recalled Gobalakrishnan.

“That is the same thing Nallakaruppan reiterated at the function PKR held at the Hotel Istana in Kuala Lumpur to welcome him into the party when he joined us in the later part of 2006. He told the gathering that he would get one hundred thousand Indians to join PKR. In the event, he barely garnered two thousand,” said Gobalakrishnan.

Anwar sympathetic to all

As preamble, Gobalakrishnan, 48, said he had known Nallakaruppan since “our childhood days in Sitiawan in the 1960s.”

“Nalla was my senior in the youth wing of MIC,” said Gopalakrishnan who between 1985 and 1999 was secretary general of MIC Youth. Gopalakrishnan joined PKR in April 1999 when the party was formed.

“There was a rift between Nallakaruppan and Samy Vellu in 1987 over a corporate matter,” continued Gopalakrishnan.

“After that, Nallakaruppan was afraid for his safety and drew even closer to Anwar whom he has known for thirty years. For him to say what he has been saying about Anwar in recent weeks is hypocritical and shows his lack of integrity,” said Gopalakrishnan.

“Just because Anwar did not support Nalla’s aspirations for a vice presidential slot in the PKR hierarchy does not mean he should forget all what has transpired between him and Anwar and all what he has said and felt about Anwar in the past,” he added.

Nallakaruppan attempted last May to contest for a veep’s positon in PKR elections but withdrew when Anwar demurred. He left the party in a huff, muttering recriminations against Anwar and went on to form MIUP.

Gobalakrishnan asserted: “Anwar is not being hypocritical in the matter of his sympathy for Indians. As a matter of fact he is sympathetic to all, irrespective of race, who are poor and in need of state help to alleviate their plight.”