SELANGOR Barisan Nasional (BN) is wooing former menteri besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim to rejoin his compatriots in Umno to recapture the state in the 14th general election.

Selangor BN chairman Noh Omar said if Khalid joined Umno again, the party could show Selangor voters that the development in the state was due to plans and policies laid out by past menteri besars from Umno.

“As former menteri besars, they will use it as a basis to explain to the people how their policies in the past were the cause of Selangor’s advancement today,” Noh said.

Noh, who is also housing and local government minister, was speaking to reporters after launching the Selangor-level ‘Gelombang Tani’ Carnival in Sabak Bernam today.

Should Khalid rejoin Umno, he is expected to work with the coalition of three former Selangor menteri besars, comprising of Muhammad Muhamad Taib, Abu Hassan Omar, and Khir Toyo.

Khalid, who is independent Bandar Tun Razak MP and Port Klang assemblyman, joined Umno in the 1990s before joining PKR around 2000.

He was the 14th Selangor menteri besar and the first to be elected by the now-defunct Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition after it won the state in GE12.

However, Khalid was sacked from PKR in August 2014 after governing the state for six years when he refused to vacate his post to make way for PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail

The initial plan, dubbed the ‘Kajang move’, was to replace Khalid with PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, but it fell through when his sodomy acquittal was overturned by the Court of Appeal, and he was subsequently convicted of the crime. – Bernama, September 24, 2017.