At the Fourth Party Conference the Leftists captured 6 out of the 12 seats in the CEC.
“In 1957 T.T Rajah under the incitement of Devan Nair, tried to take over the party against my wishes, against my open disagreement. My argument was purely simple. You cannot run a revolution from a prison camp. You can be symbols. I think this was a great mistake.”
“I told Devan Nair this will fail. There is no way you can succeed. Nevertheless Devan Nair tried to capture the CEC and oust Lee Kuan Yew by making use of T.T Rajah and Jamit Singh.”
“My view about this party crisis was that ‘you [Devan] got into this mess, you get out for this mess yourself.’ I told Lee Kuan Yew in my discussions with him that it was quite obvious that it was Devan Nair who was the prime mover. This was when Lee Kuan Yew asked Devan to make the statement [‘The Road To Socialism In An Independent Malaya‘] and he agreed.”