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A financial consultant running for the federal Conservatives in a Toronto-area riding was rejected as a candidate by the party’s own Ontario wing more than two years ago over social-media posts about Muslim extremism, sources say.

Two people — a former provincial party official and a campaign organizer familiar with the situation — told the National Post the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party asked Ghada Melek to drop out of the race for the provincial nomination in Mississauga-Streetsville.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Her run for the Ontario PCs ended after she tweeted about Islam, but Ghada Melek is now a federal Conservative candidate Back to video

Melek, however, denies the party rejected her, saying she withdrew “for personal reasons.”

She was seeking a nomination to run in the 2018 Ontario election when now-deleted tweets and retweets from her account surfaced, including some suggesting Islamic radicalism was pervasive and causing “economic hell” in places like Detroit.

Last year, Melek lobbied against what she termed an “offensive” advertisement on Mississauga city buses promoting tolerance of the hijab.