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When asked about the impact of his leadership bid, Brown said his supporters want to complete what they began with the People’s Guarantee, the election platform he released before the sexual misconduct allegations were first reported by CTV News on Jan. 24.

“The party membership want their party back,” he said. “The party membership doesn’t want to see anything hijacked.”

Brown strenuously denies claims made in a CTV News story that he fed booze to two young women and tried to pressure them into sex.

Key elements of the allegations against him have been contradicted by witnesses to the incidents and one of the accusers changed a particularly damning aspect of her allegation, that she was underage and in high school when the alleged incident occurred.

Brown has flatly called the allegations “lies,” has said he plans to sue CTV and took two lie-detectors this week, the results of which indicated he is telling the truth.

CTV and the women continue to stand by the version of events depicted in the broadcaster’s Jan. 24 story.

Shortly after the Sun revealed Friday morning that Brown had passed a lie detector test, interim leader Vic Fedeli removed Brown from the PC caucus, where he had continued to serve as an MPP following his resignation as leader.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

A number of sources told the Sun Fedeli’s move was seen as an attempt to discourage Brown from entering the leadership race.

In recent weeks, other leadership camps have been attempting to attract Brown’s supporters from various ethnic communities onto their own teams. A number of prominent grassroots organizers recently told the Sun that they were holding back their support to wait and see if Brown did in fact enter the race.