PUBLISHED ONAugust 25, 2023 3:05 AMByClaudia TanThe son of presidential candidate Tan Kin Lian, Tan Boon Keng has taken to his personal Facebook on Thursday (Aug 24) to decry nasty comments from some netizens targeting his father and daughter.
The remarks stemmed from a photo of 75-year-old Tan hugging a young girl on Tuesday (Aug 22) while he was walking out of the nomination centre to greet his supporters after being confirmed as a presidential candidate.
Several of these comments made reference to the elder Tan's "pretty girl" controversy, and suggested that he was touching the young girl in that photo inappropriately.
"Pretty girl liked to be touched. He will say that," commented one netizen.
Responding to these detractors, the younger Tan clarified: "That little girl is his granddaughter and my daughter."
He explained that his daughter had been supporting her grandfather from the field, and ran over to him when he came out for photos.
What was supposed to be photo of a candid, loving moment between a grandfather and his grandchild was later maliciously angled and captioned by some netizens.
"For those of you haters who took such a loving moment and smeared him, shame on you," he wrote in his post, which included a screenshot of some of the "nasty and disgusting" comments from haters.
He also included a photo of the former NTUC Income chief executive officer with his wife, Tay Siew Hong and their grandchildren taken during Chinese New Year.
"Look at yourself in the mirror and hope one day someone does not judge you for holding your own daughter or granddaughter," he said.
Boon Keng's post comes just days after Tan Kin Lian's daughter, Su Ling, spoke up on her father's behalf about the what she deemed an "extremely unfair system of campaigning".
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Su Ling remarked that seeing Tharman Shanmugaratnam's posters made her "blood boil", as she claimed that he was given months to prepare for his campaign.
On the other hand, her father only had three days to prepare from the time they found out that they qualified for the election, to the day they could officially start their campaign.
"The team could not even print any campaign posters in advance because the election materials were not approved until very late, not to mention the hefty costs involved in any rush jobs," she wrote.
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