Lam Thye accused Lim of having a selective memory when Lim had accused him earlier today of telling a big lie about why he left the party.

“I can’t help it if some people have selective memories. If he accused me of telling a big lie he is, in fact, not telling the truth,” Lam Thye said in a statement.

The dispute arose over Lam Thye’s account of being “stabbed in the back” by Lim in his recently published memoirs “Call Lee Lam Thye: Recalling a Lifetime of Service”.

Lam Thye wrote that Lim had forced him to leave the party in 1990 by not fielding him to defend the Bukit Bintang parliamentary constituency, where he had been MP for four terms.

“This is the simple truth. There is no point belabouring this or prolonging the issue. It benefits no one. It belongs to the annals of history,” he said, adding that he would no longer be responding to any more comments on the issue.

Lam Thye said had he been allowed to remain as a candidate for the constituency, there would have been no reason for him to leave DAP.

He said there was an effort to move him to another seat because of his “non-belligerent” style of politics, and that he was told the party had someone in mind to contest in Bukit Bintang.

This person turned out to be Wee Choo Keong, formerly of MCA. Wee, in turn, was also to fall out of favour in 1998.

Lam Thye’s resignation from DAP on September 29, 1990 caused a political shock as he did not publicly state his reasons for resigning.