Shortly after nomination was closed, Bukit Batok SMC was declared to be a battle between Murali Pillai and Dr Chee Soon Juan. The rematch of these 2 politicians was exciting, until Murali called out a “scurrilous attack” on his family.
Dear friends, I would like to share a message regarding a scurrilous attack that has just been made against my family. I am hurt. But, please be assured that I will not be deterred. I will fight doubly hard to seek the support of Bukit Batok voters to continue to serve the community. Thank you.
Murali Pillai, 30th June 2020
Nothing to Imagination
Murali puts across that the timing of the post is “nothing to imagination”. Considering that he put up this post on the afternoon of 30th June 2020, which is after Nomination, it could be implying that the post is made by his political opponents.
My son was a victim, of a scandal. He also committed offences. The court has dealt with all these matters. The perpetrators behind the scandal have been dealt with. He himself has been dealt with and is serving sentence.
Murali Pillai
What we can tell from his post is that his son has been involved in a few offences and have been serving his sentence, which could mean jail time. A quick search brings up Murali Pillai’s son on HardwareZone.
Video Could Not Be Found
As of 4th July 2020, 5 days into campaigning, it seems that the so-called “viral” post didn’t get very viral. Typically, we can expect the users of HardwareZone & Reddit to be the first across the post with the finding of such content.
At page 101, the HardwareZone thread is still ongoing with people scratching their heads.
There have been no such video so far, which is leading to speculation that the video doesn’t exists and that Murali’s post might have been calculated.
Chee Soon Juan Responds
Chee Soon Juan is no stranger to having people spreading rumours or even calling him a “mad man”.
Dr Chee was teaching at National University of Singapore and was sacked a couple of months after joining the Singapore Democratic Party by Dr Sushilan Vasoo, a PAP MP at that point in time, based on some allegations of using research funds to send his wife’s doctoral thesis to the United States and making false transport claims.
He has also been jailed for seemingly small offences and also had been a bankrupt after being sued by Goh Chok Tong and the late Lee Kuan Yew.
When Murali posted about his son’s scandal, Dr Chee released the following post on his Facebook Page:
I have just been told that there is a video circulating about Mr Murali’s family. I haven’t seen it myself but I have watched Mr Murali’s anguished response to it. I stand with Mr Murali on this and call on whoever who did this video to stop it and for others not to circulate it.
This is not what politics should be. Politics is about ideas on how we can make our nation better, not personal attacks like this. I may disagree with Mr Murali on his political views and we can have a healthy and professional debate on them. But our differences must not be allowed to degenerate into unseemly smears against the candidates and their families.
Dr Chee Soon Juan, 30th June 2020
Streisand Effect at Work
The Streisand effect is a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information, often via the Internet. Murali Pillai’s son is apparently involved in some kind of offence and has been dealt with by the law. This has not been confirmed. There is also no proof that Murali Pillai’s son has committed a crime or has been jailed. So far, it has only been speculation on the netizen’s end.
Murali’s so-called video has not surfaced. This has led to HardwareZone and Reddit to go on a search for the information.
HardwareZone has been hard at work unravelling the rumours. There are two threads to look at:
- BREAKING! Murali Pillai: “My son was a victim of a scandal. He also committed offences,”
- [Lai Liao! Paper cannot contain Fire] Public info of Murali Pillai Twin sons
Some articles were also brought up by the forum, like “Jail for man who led police on high-speed chase, helped friend extort cash from teen“.
There appears to wild speculations from sex videos, sex with minors, drugs, gag orders and other offences.
As of now, none of these can be verified.
You can follow the HardwareZone thread about Murali Pillai’s son in the meantime.
Tan Jee Say’s son had an altercation, in 2014
Back in 2014, there had been news coverage when Tan Jee Say’s son, trained in judo, punched someone over a disagreement in school. The poor kid ended up in hospital. That piece of news made it to the front page.
Tan Jee Say is a presidential election candidate in 2011 and was expected to contest for presidency in 2017 until the constitution was changed which made Halimah Yacob president through a reserved presidency.
Murali cries during interview
In an interview by The Straits Times, Murali is seen to be tearing during the interview.
It had also been said that Dr Chee has been on a political debate, made several rallies and also provided explanations to his 4Y1N plan while Murali seems to be still garnering sympathy over a non-existent scandal video.
So, why does no one know what happened to Murali’s sons? Why is his son not acquitted if it is a scam and is “serving punishment”? Why does it seem that only Murali is affected?
We totally have no idea.
What does this say about Bukit Batok SMC?
Are the residents of Bukit Batok choosing between a “mad man” and a “softie”? Murali has not shown any plans for Bukit Batok. He has dealt with an unhappy resident who has since removed her complaint. It seems that social media is the only way to get anything resolved these days.
As for Dr Chee, he stands firm on his 4Y1N campaign and has celebrated a small victory of putting Dr Vivian Balakrishnan on record for saying that there is no 10 million or 6.9 million population target.
We do have to note that Dr Vivian Balakrishnan has run Youth Olympic Games into an overbudget of 3.8x from $100m to $384m and also announced that there is no need to adjust the price of water before the last General Elections which was raised 30% after the General Elections by Masagos.