Bukit Bendera Gerakan chairman Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan said he investigated the report by going to the ground and found it to be baseless.

"As far as we are concerned, nobody sent in any resignations. No member wanted to leave the party," he said.

Teng, who is also a state executive councillor and Pulau Tikus assemblyman, said Gerakan members are "working happily with the party".

"The newspaper only quoted an unnamed source and this type of publicity, giving a figure of 1,000, should be substantiated with facts," he said in a press conference today.

The newspaper had reported that the 1,000 Barisan Nasional members had left the component parties to join Parti Keadilan Rakyat because they were unhappy over a carpark issue in Rifle Range.

Teng clarified that the government is still considering the proposal to build a multi-storey carpark in Rifle Range to ease the parking woes of the residents.

"We have to be careful in planning a multi-storey carpark because we do not want it to become a white elephant," he said.

"It is easy to just build a highrise multi-storey carpark with 1,000 lots but we have to be practical because people usually do not want to park on the higher floors. They would park on the first two floors and leave the other floors empty, turning it into a 'white elephant'.

"We have to plan it properly first. Be assured that it is all in the pipeline now and it is nobody's fault that the carpark is not being built now."

Earlier, asked to comment on the same issue, Gerakan acting president Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said he had not heard about any huge numbers of Gerakan members wanting to leave the party.

"So far, there is no dissenting factions that I know of," he said.

Koh said the daily reported 1,000 members but it could very well be only 10 members or fewer.