Washington: Manju Goel, a Republican Indian-American Congressional candidate in Illinois, has been asked to withdraw from the primary race over accusations of putting up fake web and social media sites to discredit her opponent.

The head of the Cook County Republican Party asked Goel to withdraw after her opponent in the March 18 elections Larry Kaifesh accused her campaign and her supporters of taking her “campaign into the gutter”.

“Everything is a facade. They’ve created imaginary images. There’s a Where’s Larry web site that is malicious in nature,” Kaifesh said.

According to the phony site, which resembles Kaifesh’s official campaign website, it was paid for by a Super Political Action Committee (PAC) called Indian Americans for Freedom (IAFF), which lists Goel’s address.

Under the US law, Super PACs, officially known as “independent-expenditure only committees”, can engage in unlimited political spending as long as they don’t make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties.

The PAC was formed by Indian-American businessman Shalli Kumar. Goel, a 2012 US Republican Party presidential nomination aspirant, said she has no control over the IAFF organisation. “I cannot account on anybody else’s actions,” Goel said.

However, Cook County Republican Chairman Aaron Del Mar said he wanted Goel to drop out of the race.