Sassy MP Teresa Kok may be Ms Congeniality, but she is also the First Lady of Controversy.

Her amiability aside, she has had to endure the abysmal temperament of racial politics regularly, far more than most politicians.

There are those who malign her as a Chinese dogmatist and anti-Muslim, while her supporters proclaim her as a heroine who has been slighted.

This is one lady who has been through wretchedness and is still being castigated, the latest last Saturday, when her picture was cut up in one of the 46 Hari Raya banners she put up in Puchong.

Another picture of Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo was left intact.

So, what’s with this Kok bashing?

"Certain quarters are saying I am pulling the strings in the Selangor government and that the Menteri Besar is just a puppet," the three-term DAP MP for Seputeh told Malay Mail yesterday.

"They say I am in control by virtue of my position as a senior State executive councillor.

"They say the Chinese and the DAP are in control of Selangor and not the Pakatan Rakyat government," said Kok, who is also the State Assemblyman for Kinrara.

"This could be why I am being targeted but I am not about to stop what I have been doing," said Kok who won her parliamentary seat with a 36,492-vote majority — the biggest — in the March general election.

There is also babble that certain quarters are not happy with her being able to connect with Malays.

Other DAP leaders have also reportedly been successful in such an endeavour.

Kok’s friends say these mischief-makers are instigating the people to hit out at her in the hope of bringing her down while her critics maintain she is a chauvinist and an enemy of Islam.

Former de facto Law Minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, who recently quit the Cabinet partly in protest against the use of the Internal Security Act (ISA), had said: "I know Teresa personally and I cannot see her as anti-Islam."

When Kok was detained under the ISA, many reportedly viewed her arrest and that of a Sin Chew Daily journalist as unwarranted.

She is said to have had the support of her political opponents even, including those from the ruling Barisan Nasional.

With most media people, she’s a darling and that would explain the standing ovation she got from reporters at a media conference hours after her release on Sept 19.