At a press meet after nomination, Singapore Democratic Party’s candidate for Bukit Batok by-election, Dr Chee Soon Juan explained why Bukit Batok needs a full-time MP. “Every morning, when Mr Murali wakes up, his first destination will be his office. When I wake up every morning, my first destination is Bukit Batok. That’s the difference,” he said.
People’s Action Party’s candidate Murali Pillai responded to Dr Chee today and said that Bukit Batok need not have a full-time MP and that he will continue to rely on his pool of volunteers to serve the needs of his residents. He said that he will successfully juggle a day job and his MP’s responsibilities.
Unlike all opposition Members of Parliament (MP) who serve as full-time MPs, Mr Murali pointed out that tMPs from the People’s Action Party are not.
When a power trip affected the commuters at Bukit Batok MRT station recently, Dr Chee did a public service announcement in all 4 official languages to inform residents about the disruption in service in that area. His post has about 1000 likes and shared over 400 times.
Over 200 people also commented in his post. Most comments were appreciative of Dr Chee and wished that he won the contest in that constituency. Some asked what can be done to prevent such frequent train disruptions.
The next morning Dr Chee made his way to the station again at about 8.30 am and said that trains were up and running smoothly at the station at that time.
Mr Pillai however was nowhere in sight during the power outage in the MRT station. Either on the day of the disruption or the following morning. He had however mobilised his Party volunteers to see how they can help commuters who were caught in the train system malfunction.
His volunteers however were like a rudderless ship and seemed unsure about how they could help the commuters.
They had remembered to dress in party colours (white-and-white) and had brought torchlights with them. But they seemed to be shining the torchlights when the place seemed to be lighted well-enough.
Or shining them when there was no one in sight.
It’s unclear why when almost everyone has a phone in their pockets which can also serve as a torchlight, you still need people to shine torchlights at such power outages.
