Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon shifted blame for engineering the 2014 military coup onto Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha during the censure debate on Wednesday.
"I give you the coup maker. Here he is," Gen Prawit said, pointing to the prime minister sitting close to him in parliament.
Gen Prawit, leader of the ruling Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP), said neither he nor Interior Minister Gen Anupong Paojinda had a hand in the coup. Gen Prayut, Gen Prawit and Gen Anupong are the "three Por" generals accused of being the architects of the coup that toppled the Pheu Thai Party-led administration on May 22, 2014.
Reacting to Gen Prawit's revelation, Gen Prayut immediately raised his hand and smiled. Emerging from the censure debate on Wednesday night, he said he bore no grudges against Gen Prawit for singling him out as the lone coup maker.
"I have to account for my actions since I made it [the coup] happen," Gen Prayut said. "But what drove me to do it? It was what was going on then," he said, referring to the extreme political tensions which degenerated into an impasse that rendered the government of the day unable to function.
The now-defunct coup maker, the National Council for Peace and Order, insisted it staged the coup to break the impasse.
Tensions built up as mass protests by the People's Democratic Reform Committee movement rallied against the government for trying to push for a blanket amnesty allegedly intended to benefit former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who fled the country prior to being sentenced by the Supreme Court for assisting his former wife to clinch a discounted land deal.
On Wednesday, Gen Prawit was responding to a censure allegation from Theeratchai Panthumas, a Move Forward Party list MP. Mr Theeratchai alleged the deputy prime minister may have interfered with the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) in a bid to avoid being investigated for his possession of luxury watches which Gen Prawit claimed were lent to him by a friend.
On Dec 27, 2018, the NACC ruled there were no grounds to accusations that Gen Prawit gave a false wealth declaration by failing to include 22 luxury watches and rings.