The Workers’ Party showed recently that in the wake of the scandal involving former Member of Parliament Raeesah Khan, it pulled together with a show of strength and unity.
The WP brought out its biggest guns on Tuesday night—including secretary-general, Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, and party chair and vice chair, Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap respectively, as part of its “an ongoing effort to visit the households of Compassvale.”
Compassvale had been the ward assigned to Khan, who stepped down on Nov 30, 2021, after she admitted to having lied in Parliament several times last year.
An investigation into her falsehoods caused WP’s leadership—Messrs Singh and Faisal and Ms Lim—to be dragged into the fray as well, with the Committee of Privileges finding that she had acted upon their direction.
After Khan stepped down, Sengkang GRC MP He Ting Ru, who chairs Sengkang’s Town Council, announced in a press conference on Dec 2 that the residents Khan had represented would be taken care of.
And with the May 24 house visits, the WP MPs showed they were more than making good on this.
Aside from the leadership and other Sengkang GRC MPs (Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Louis Chua), Aljunied GRC MPs Mr Leon Perera and Mr Gerald Giam were also present, as well as Mr Dennis Tan, the MP for Hougang SMC, along with a large team of volunteers.
“One of the important principles that the #workersparty believes in is that, as Singaporeans, we have a collective responsibility to care for one another. That is why we emphasize that those who have been more fortunate have a greater role to play in helping uplift the less fortunate in our society.
By a similar token, as a party, we believe in the importance of sharing the burden of our political commitments collectively. This was evident tonight, as our MPs gathered together in #SengkangGRC to perform the first of what will be an ongoing effort to visit the households of #Compassvale,” reads a Facebook post on the Sengkang GRC account.
It added that because of the support “drawn from across all divisions,” valuable input had been gathered enabling them to “learn about the cares, concerns, and challenges faced by Singaporean families, which enables us to do our job of representing their voices even better.”
The Leader of the Opposition also shared the post from Sengkang GRC and added that he and his team “appreciated the conversations with the residents of Compassvale and look forward to meeting more of you in future.
I smiled to myself when I saw a home-made sign just above the doorbell of one unit – ‘We are not selling or renting our unit! Thank you!’
After speaking to residents in the block over the course of the evening, it was easy to understand why!”
Mr Singh encouraged residents to get in touch with the Sengkang Town Council, the resident MPs or Mr Manap, who acts in an advisory role, for their issues and concerns.
“You can also write to any of the WP MPs too and we will channel the feedback to our Sengkang colleagues,” he added. /TISG