BN component parties MCA and Gerakan have been told not to give the excuse that a BN minister's statement that Malaysia is not a secular country is a "personal opinion" as it was made in Parliament..

DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang said that MCA and Gerakan must instead both demand a retraction from Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Jamil Khir Baharom.

The cabinet and the BN supreme council must also make a clear pronouncement that Malaysia is a secular state with Islam as the official religion, said Lim ( left ) in a statement today.

This comes after both MCA and Gerakan countered Jamil Khir's statement by insisting that Malaysia is a secular state, but with MCA president Liow Tiong Lai dismissing the minister's parliamentary reply as a "personal view".

Lim however pointed out, "The excuse that a minister is giving his 'personal opinion' might be used if the minister is speaking outside Parliament, but it is completely unacceptable when a minister makes a speech or a statement in Parliament."

He said that there no such thing as a personal view when a minister speaks in Parliament, as whatever the minister says in the House is in his official capacity on behalf of the government.

BN parties scared to call consensus?

Lim asked if Liow was putting up a "pretence" and trying to "evade the issue" in order to avoid confronting his Umno partners head on.

"The first thing that must be done is to get back to the basics, to restore the original status of Malaysia as a secular state as stipulated by the original constitutional provisions and the founding fathers of the nation," Lim said.

He questioned why Gerakan and MCA leaders have not called for an emergency meeting among BN components to make a stand on this matter asking if they were afraid to do so.

After all, he said, such a meeting would be assured that "votes of the 13 component parties would ensure a decisive 12-1 rejection" against Jamil Khir's statement.

"Can Liow and Mah, as well as the other leaders of the non-Umno BN component parties, explain why they are afraid of requisitioning an emergency meeting of the BN supreme council," he asked.