Kerk Chee Yee, the political secretary to DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, said it was the basic duty of the local authority to ensure that any report of potholes were attended to as soon as complaints were received.

He said it was amusing that Abu Bakar, who is deputy science, technology and innovation minister, had to resort to performing a prayer in front of a pothole just to grab the attention of the local council.

“Constituencies held by ministerial figures may not receive VIP treatment,” he said.

“Some ministers from BN like to garner votes on the narrative that due to their ministerial positions, they can better take care of the voters in the constituencies.

“What the Tangga Batu MP has done immediately dismisses that illusion,” Kerk said in a statement today.

He said despite Abu Bakar being a deputy minister as well as MP of the constituency in Melaka, his report to the district council a week before was not attended to until he resorted to the stunt and it was posted on social media.

Abu Bakar had highlighted the potholes along Jalan Bukit Berlian on his Facebook page last week, asking the district council concerned to carry out repair works.

Yesterday morning, while on the way back from a funeral, he noticed that they had still not been repaired.

He then decided to sit on the dirty road and pray. The pictures of him sitting on the road and asking for divine help went viral on Facebook.

Hardly 12 hours later, the road repairs were carried out.

Abu Bakar later thanked the authorities, saying the potholes had been there for the past month and he had been worried that some passerby would have an unfortunate accident while using the road.

Deputy minister’s antics get road in Melaka repaired quickly