Trairong Suwannakhiri, the deputy leader of the United Thai Nation Party (UTN), said the party did not offer Democrat MPs a hefty sum of money to defect to the UTN ahead of the election.
His clarification came following a remark by Democrat leader Jurin Laksanawisit recently, in which he claimed a number of Democrat members had been offered large sums of money to leave the party's ranks by another political outfit.
Reciting a metaphor cited previously by Chuan Leekpai, a former Democrat leader, Mr Jurin said the rival party was "fishing in a friend's fishpond". It has come to refer to parties poaching from each other's ranks.
Though he stopped short of naming the party, many observers believed he was referring to the newly-established UTN.
Mr Trairong, himself a former member of the Democrat Party, said he was never offered any money to leave the party and join the UTN.
He said he wasn't aware of anyone joining the UTN after being offered money to defect.
Mr Trairong said those who had left the Democrat Party recently did so because they had lost faith in the party and its ability to maintain its political ideology, not because they were bought by a new party.
Chumpol Kanchana -- a former Democrat politician who is now a deputy leader of the UTN -- for instance, decided to leave the party along with his daughter because they no longer had faith in the party, said Mr Trairong.
Mr Chumpol left after he was told by his daughter that she had been offered 500,000 baht to vote for three candidates in the Democrat Party's past executive election, said Mr Trairong.
Earlier last week Mr Chuan said that one of his best friends at the Democrat Party left for a new party because he was offered up to 200 million baht as part of a deal to help the new party win all seats in a southern province in the coming election.
Mr Chumpol later admitted that he was the friend Mr Chuan was referring to, but said he didn't have a clue as to where the 200 million baht figure Mr Chuan mentioned came from.
All he had told Mr Chuan was that many people in the Democrat Party were being offered a huge sum of money to leave for a new party, he said.
