By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DE FACTO PHEU THAI BOSS-cum-convict on parole Thaksin Shinawatra has not only been virtually “untouchable” at hospital but also in Parliament.
During today’s (Mar. 20) second reading of the 2024 budget bill in the House chamber, four Pheu Thai MPs took turns to rise to their feet in protest of a verbal statement made by Budget Committee member Ruangkrai Leekitwatana of the Palang Pracharath against their de facto party boss pertaining to the Revenue Department’s aborted seizure of 45 million baht worth of his wealth.
Almost immediately after the Palang Pracharath member had mentioned the de facto Pheu Thai boss by name, those Pheu Thai MPs decidedly staged their floor protest, prompting House Speaker Wan Muhamad Nor Matha to order him to stop reading a document about the contentious matter which they deemed as “irrelevant” to today’s second reading of the budget bill.
The Palang Pracharath member of the Budget Committee could hardly finish a sentence as those Pheu Thai MPs, three of whom are women lawmakers, kept interrupting his speech and insisted the House speaker order him to stop it.
Ruangkrai called to no avail for a 45 million baht cut in the Revenue Department’s budget for the current fiscal year to hold it accountable for damage done in last year’s legal battle which the agency had engaged against the de facto Pheu Thai boss who had been earlier accused of evading the corresponding amount of personal income tax.
However, the Appeals Court had ruled the Revenue Department had unlawfully impounded Thaksin’s asset in relation to his alleged tax evasion and ordered the agency to return it.
The de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict on parole has been virtually viewed as an “untouchable” figure to whom access by all uninvited persons, including House Committee on Police Affairs chair Chaichana Dejdecho, had been literally denied.
Thaksin had allegedly enjoyed the double-standard privileges provided by the Corrections Department in a private ward at Police Hospital where he had stayed for mystery-shrouded “illnesses” for six months until he was granted parole last month.
The deposed prime minister who had been originally sentenced in absentia to eight years in jail which was curtailed by royal pardon to one year for a few counts of court-convicted misconduct in office had never spent a single day behind bars.
He has been released on parole without an EM ankle bracelet, returned to his Chan Song Lah residence on the Thonburi side of Bangkok and been allowed by the Probation Department to fly a private jet to visit his northern home province of Chiang Mai for a few days.
CAPTIONS:
Top: A supporter takes a selfie with de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra, centre, at Rajapruek Royal Park in Chiang Mai on March 14, 2024. Photo: AP and published by VOA
Insert: Palang Pracharath MP Ruangkrai Leekitwatana. Photo: Thai Rath
Front Page: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra talking to the press in Chiang Mai. Photo: Thai Rath
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