SINGAPORE – Progress Singapore Party’s (PSP) volunteers have categorically denied manhandling PAP volunteers during a walkabout in Bukit Gombak on Jan 4, said party leaders Tan Cheng Bock and Hazel Poa.

They were responding to Chua Chu Kang GRC MP Low Yen Ling’s account of the incident, where she had said a man from PSP intimidated a PAP volunteer and slapped his face twice, among other actions from the opposition group.

In a Facebook post on Jan 10, Dr Tan said: “For Ms Low to have made such serious allegations, she must have clear evidence of the alleged manhandling. She needs to make this evidence available.”

Dr Tan added that the PSP does not condone any form of violence, and will take disciplinary action if any of its volunteers acted aggressively. But the party would fight the allegations “all the way” if they have been falsely accused, he added.

Volunteers from the two parties had run into each other during their walkabouts, leading to a series of altercations. Each side is alleging harassment by the other and offering a different account of what happened.

Dr Tan said he was shocked by Ms Low’s account of the incident, and that the PSP held a meeting to hear their volunteers’ side of the story after she published her Facebook post on Jan 8.

Ms Low said the PSP member who slapped the first PAP volunteer’s face also pulled the shirt of a second PAP volunteer, to force the latter to take a video and photo with him.

She added that the People’s Action Party team had considered filing a police report after two of its male volunteers were “physically manhandled”, but decided not to.

A PSP volunteer has filed a report, and police investigations are ongoing.

Ms Low also said a group of female PAP volunteers saw that they were being recorded by PSP members that afternoon, and responded by doing the same.

In response, Dr Tan said: “All the male volunteers who participated in the house visits on Jan 4 at Goodview Gardens were clear that they did not slap anyone, and they were firm in asserting that the allegation was untrue.”

A PSP volunteer did try to take a photo with a man who was filming him, but did not pull him by his shirt as alleged by Ms Low, he added.

Dr Tan said the PSP volunteers only started vid...