KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — Lim Kit Siang said today he has never in his life campaigned as hard as he has in Teluk Intan, but explained that this was out of fear that DAP’s candidate and his former political aide Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud may lose the Chinese vote.

He said such an outcome can be blamed on the propaganda used by Dyana’s and DAP’s enemies to convince the constituency’s Chinese not to vote for a Malay candidate.

“I am very worried that Dyana will lose considerable Chinese votes,” Lim said in a statement here.

He pointed out that in the past, he and his party have been accused of taking the support of Teluk Intan’s Chinese voters for granted.

But today, far from it, Lim said, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) election machinery is going “all out” to ensure every vote is secured, regardless of whether it is from the Chinese, Malay or Indian communities.

“DAP and Pakatan Rakyat would like to see Dyana maintaining the level of Chinese voter support that we received in the general elections last May.

“This is why I have parked myself in Teluk Intan for the past three days and I have never campaigned so intensively for a by-election in my 48 years in politics as in the Teluk Intan by-election,” the DAP veteran said.

Lim was responding to Dyana’s contender for the seat — Gerakan president Datuk Mah Siew Keong — who had reportedly accused Lim of “toying with voters’ feelings” for claiming that the DAP is the underdog in the by-election.

Mah was quoted as saying in a report by The Malaysian Insider that it was impossible for DAP to lack confidence in Teluk Intan when it had won the constituency last May with a majority of more than 7,000 votes.

On Monday, Lim said in a statement that DAP’s chance of retaining Teluk Intan had dwindled to as low as 40 per cent, due to the alleged race-baiting by the party’s contenders in BN.

He said BN believes the DAP has committed a “fatal error” by fielding a Malay candidate for the Chinese-majority seat and will use this to wrest the party’s non-Malay support.

“For these reasons, the DAP has a very uphill battle, and I will rate the DAP’s chances of winning Teluk Intan by-election as 40 per cent to 60 per cent,” Lim said.

Today, Lim said the response to Dyana so far has been overwhelming, which has helped to raise DAP’s chances from 40 per cent.

“But clearly, if Dyana is to win on May 31, she has still a long way to go,” he said.

“Dyana can only win on May 31 if the voters of Teluk Intan are prepared for the second time to ‘write history and create a miracle’,” he added.

Last May, DAP’s Seah Leong Peng defeated Mah with a 7,313-vote majority.

The voter base in Teluk Intan is 42 per cent Chinese, 38 per cent Malay and 19 per cent Indian, making a total of 60,349 registered voters.