Its assistant public secretary, George Wong, said Sabah DAP chief Frankie Poon had always given room to all committee members, including Justin, to speak up on issues and to offer differing opinions.

He added that had Justin attended the committee meetings, he would have had the same avenue to speak up.

“It is normal for leaders to have differing opinions and no one has ever silenced him or instructed him to become a ‘yes man’ in the party,” he said in a statement here today.

“Let me say this in no uncertain terms that Justin’s claim is absolutely not true. The outrageous ‘yes man’ claim is certainly fallacious.

“There is certainly no justifying his party-hopping and betrayal of the people who voted for him.

“I am not sure why he is spewing venom at the political party which groomed him politically and gave him a political platform in the first place.”

Justin and Elopura state representative Calvin Chong had joined Warisan yesterday after spending three months as independent assemblymen following their resignation from DAP on Jan 20.

Reading from a text after joining Warisan, Justin, a first-term assemblyman, said he had been loyal to DAP all his life and that he left not because of personal interests but due to the loss of direction and serious infighting within the party.

“I believe that it is not in my best interest to continue sticking with a party that only wants me to be a ‘yes man’,” he said.

Wong, in his statement today, also said Justin and Chong had claimed when they quit DAP in January that they had no intention of jumping to any other political party.

“However, they have now officially joined DAP’s rival Warisan.

“This is a clear contradiction of what they had previously said,” he said.

Yesterday, Sabah DAP also issued a statement slamming the duo, saying it hoped Justin and Chong “would be the last batch of political frogs before the implementation of the anti-hopping law”.