Ousted former Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown is running again for the right to battle Premier Kathleen Wynne in the June 7 election — even though he has been banished from the Tory caucus at Queen’s Park.

In a bizarre twist to a saga that has plunged the official opposition Conservatives into further chaos, Brown on Friday filed the paperwork to join the PC leadership race, prompting rivals to blast his stunning decision.

“I think my name has been cleared and now it’s about getting Ontario back on track,” Brown proclaimed as he led reporters and cameras on a chase down the stairs at party headquarters and along Adelaide St. to a taxi.

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He said the party has been “hijacked” and his People’s Guarantee election platform abandoned.

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Brown’s demeanour was a marked change from three weeks ago, when he resigned as leader after a teary news conference over a CTV News report that alleged sexual impropriety involving two teenage girls.

Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown speaks at a press conference at Queen's Park in Toronto Jan. 24, 2018. On Friday he entered the party's leadership race, a move that comes three weeks after he resigned as leader. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The leadership gambit came just two hours before the deadline for entering the March 10 contest.

But party president Jag Badwal cautioned that Brown’s leadership application must still pass a vetting process “in the same manner as the other declared candidates.”

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Furious leadership rivals blasted Brown’s stunning decision and questioned his claim to having cleared his name.

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Brown called the allegations in the CTV report “fictitious” and has threatened to sue the network.

“Our focus should remain squarely on beating Kathleen Wynne in less than 100 days. This is a distraction from that and I am disappointed,” said Caroline Mulroney on Twitter.

“Patrick Brown made the right decision to step down. A leadership election is not the place for him to try to clear his name,” said Mulroney, a rookie PC candidate in York-Simcoe.

Doug Ford echoed that, saying the “party is objectively stronger without Patrick Brown.”

“The rot that was identified by our interim leader (Vic Fedeli) is real and serious. It has served as an obstacle to our victory in June,” the former Toronto councillor said on Twitter, referring to Fedeli’s move to part company with the party’s executive director, other staff and investigate an inflated membership list.

Two suspicious nominations of candidates have also been overturned while a third is under police fraud investigation.

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Christine Elliott, who placed second to Brown in the party’s 2015 leadership race, said “with fewer than 100 days, now is a time for unity.”

Ford emphasized “the Ontario PC Party is about more than any one person.”

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But anti sex-education activist Tanya Granic Allen, who slammed Brown for “corruption” in Thursday night’s leadership debate, welcomed his entry.

“Finally, he will be held to account for his political crimes,” her campaign said in a blistering statement, accusing Brown of flip-flopping on opposition to Wynne’s updated sex education curriculum for the social media era and of “ballot-box stuffing” at several nominations.

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Brown’s surprise move happened the same day he was turfed from the Tory caucus at Queen’s Park, meaning he will be sitting as an Independent MPP when the House resumes Tuesday.

“Shortly after becoming interim leader, I asked Patrick Brown to step aside from the PC caucus,” said Fedeli.

“Earlier today, Mr. Brown was notified that he has been removed from the PC Caucus effective immediately,” added Fedeli, who has vowed to clean up the “rot” in the Brown-era party.

“The same procedure was followed when Mr. Brown removed Jack MacLaren from the PC caucus,” the interim leader said, referring to the member of the Trillium Party.

Brown’s dismissal from caucus came just two hours after the Star posted a recording from one of two conference calls with Tory MPPs late on the night of Jan. 24.

In that call, which happened hours after the CTV News report, Brown quit as leader.

“Despite the fact that this is character assassination and false allegations, I don’t want any of us to set back on our mission to defeat Kathleen Wynne,” he told his colleagues.

“I want nothing more than to see you all successful in replacing this corrupt government. When you work 20 hours a day like I do on defeating this government, I would never want to be an obstacle to you defeating (it),” Brown continues.

“I’ve asked (director of communications) Rebecca (Thompson) to prepare a statement that I will resign,” he says.

“And I’ve asked her to figure out at what point tomorrow that is set, and she has drafted a statement while you guys were on the call, and she can read it to you if you want to hear what we’ve put together so far.”

In contrast to his emotional 81-second news conference earlier that the evening, where he was too upset to take journalists’ questions and led them on a chase through the building to a waiting van, Brown sounded composed and resigned to his fate in the caucus call.

Despite his resignation, some of his loyalists in the party were claiming he is still technically the leader.

Brown, himself, suggested to Global News earlier this week that he did not agree to the departure plan.

“The resignation was sent out without my permission,” he told Global.

But the audio of the conference call appears to contradict that assertion.

That revelation came Thursday just as the first leadership debate by his would-be successors was starting.

Voting for a new leader take place online between March 2 and March 8 and the winner will be announced March 10.