Speaking to reporters at the Parliament building today, Rafizi said the Umno Supreme Council member’s dislike of him runs all the way back to the latter’s time as director-general of the special affairs department (Jasa), the former incarnation of what is now the community communications department (better known as J-Kom).

“Even if Malaysia becomes wealthy, Puad will not agree with me because I used to bring up issues regarding the 1MDB controversy when he was the head of Jasa.

“Then he lost in the election and was flung from the government. So it’s personal. If you look at the four or five people who are making noise, they are political figures … it’s personal,” he said.

On Sunday, Puad was reported as saying that Padu’s flaws are Rafizi’s failures and that despite the latter’s nickname of “Formula King”, his formula did not work this time.

“Previously, Rafizi was known for saying Barisan Nasional caused price hikes, Najib (Razak) was associated with 1MDB, and 1MDB was associated with Najib.

“Now, he (Rafizi) is feeling the karma for what he did,” Puad said in a Facebook post.

Rafizi said criticism of Padu by these “four, five people making noise” had not stopped 300,000 to 400,000 people from registering every day over the last week.

He also dismissed concerns over Padu’s security, saying the government had given assurances on this matter since Jan 2.

“Even though attacks reached two million attempts a week at a time, there has been no breach of the database until now.

“We have explained that the data is encrypted. Even if it is breached, they (hackers) need to decrypt the data.”