The People's Action Party (PAP) sent a Tamil-speaking minister to the party political broadcasts as a sign of respect to Tamils in Singapore, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.
The party takes all four official languages seriously, he added, but having a Tamil speaker at the broadcast is the PAP's way of saying to the Tamil population in Singapore that it is valued.
He said: "That's not just because of reaching out to the ground in Tamil. That is important but it's also a show of respect to the Tamil population that we value you. We respect you. And we will make sure that we show that in these ways... that they are very important, very significant."
The PAP, Mr Shanmugam said, takes all four official languages "very seriously", and the party also takes it seriously that it has people who are able to go and speak in the four languages at the broadcasts.
While Mr Shanmugam did not comment on other parties that did not send Tamil-speaking candidates to the broadcasts, he said: "Each party makes its calculation, and why others didn't speak in Tamil, you could ask them."
Mr Shanmugam, who is the anchor minister for the PAP team in Nee Soon GRC, was responding to questions from the media on Saturday on the small number of Tamil-speaking candidates who had been fielded to speak at the broadcasts.
The first party political broadcast for the July 10 election was aired last Thursday. The People's Action Party put out messages in all four languages.
Communications and Information Minister S. Iswaran spoke in Tamil and Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat spoke in English. Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing spoke in Mandarin while Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs Maliki Osman spoke in Malay.
Seven political parties had party political broadcasts. The PAP, the Progress Singapore Party and the Peoples Voice party had sent Tamil speakers, while the Workers' Party (WP), Singapore Democratic Party, National Solidarity Party and Reform Party did not do so.
The WP had faced criticism last week when it failed to send a representative for a televised live debate in Mandarin.
Following that, WP leader Pritam Singh apologised, saying that while the party has members who are comfortable making speeches and communicating to residents in Mandarin, the "quality of the proficiency required to participate in a live debate is of a higher order".
The next day, they sent the WP candidate for East Coast GRC, Mr Kenneth Foo, to a Mandarin dialogue broadcast on Zaobao.sg.
The next party political broadcast will be aired on Thursday, which is Cooling-off Day.
