KRK accused of posting sexist tweets: SP scraps his nomination

, April 5: The Samajwadi Party (

) decided to cancel the Lok Sabha poll candidature of controversial film personality Kamaal Rashid Khan after he was accused of making derogatory remarks against women on micro-blogging site Twitter.

The Maharahstra unit of the party submitted a copy of Khan's 1,100-plus tweets along with a strong advice to scrap his candidature to party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav earlier this week. Khan had already filed his nomination.

Khan said in his defence that the posts were old and were made from a parody account. SP sources later said that it was confirmed by Twitter authorities that the account was an original one.

Khan was set to take on Congress's Gurudas Kamat, Aam Aadmi Party's Mayank Gandhi and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's Mahesh Majrekar from the Mumbai North-East constituency.

Sources in the SP said the decision to cancel Khan's candidature was taken in Lucknow on Thursday night and the party would let ths Election Commission know its decision.

The SP took the decision for it couldn't afford to ignore such a sensitive issue

The SP faced a lot a of embarrassment over the derogatory comments that Khan had allegedly made against women, including female actors. Many had even alerted Farhan Azmi, the chief of the party's youth wing in Maharashtra and expressed their displeasure over Khan's nomination.

Azmi, who himself is contesting from North-Central Mumbai, took a firm stand on this and the party leadership finally gave in keeping in view the sensitivity of issues like respect for women. It could also have weakened the position of Azmi, who is contesting his first Lok Sabha election this time, and that too against strong opponents like Priya Dutt and Poonam Mahajan.

Khan, who was seen tweeting against Azmi, had earlier said on April 2 that the news about the cancellation of his ticket were April Fool joke. The very next day, Khan tweeted saying he quit the Samajwadi Party for he didn't want to be a part of "Abu Pvt. Ltd. Co." in Mumbai.

A few days ago, KRK said in an interview that while Arvind Kejriwal was repeating the drama that every other politicians do, Narendra Modi was afraid and hence was contesting from two seats.

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