KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak disputed a report today that claimed he deleted a Facebook post asking Umno’s Datuk Lokman Noor Adam to remove a poll to gauge appetite for his return as Umno de facto leader.

Najib, who has been spending increasingly more time on Facebook, then offered a lesson to reporters on how the social media platform operates, after Berita Harian reported that he deleted the said post.

"For the informtion of reporters, my message was simply a share of Datuk Lokman’s original post.

"If Datuk Lokman’s post has been deleted by him, then my share will also be deleted automatically by Facebook.”

Lokman previously conducted an impromptu popularity poll that pitted Najib against former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin.

He initiated the poll after Khairy ridiculed him for proposing that Najib return to head Umno as its de facto leader. Najib has declined, saying he wanted to concentrate on defending himself against the raft of criminal charges against him.

Current Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has yielded his duties to his deputy, Datuk Seri Mohamad Hassan, who will be made the party’s acting president in his absence.