Jaipur: Controversial BJP MLA and Hindu hardliner Gyan Dev Ahuja on Sunday resigned from the BJP after being denied a ticket to the upcoming Rajasthan Assembly polls, and announced he would contest as an independent candidate from Sanganer.
Ahuja will file his nomination paper on Monday and will contest on the Hindutva agenda.
“My name was dropped by the party without taking me in confidence. I was not even told about the reason why my ticket was dropped. After pressure from my supporters and family members, I resigned from the party and will now contest the election from the Sanganer seat,” Ahuja said.
Ahuja forwarded his resignation to the party’s state president Madan Lal Saini. He is a sitting MLA from the Ramgarh constituency of Alwar district. The constituency he would contest from now — Sanganer was won in the 2013 Assembly elections by Ghanshyam Tiwari, who had since quit the BJP and formed his own party after differences with chief minister Vasundhara Raje.
“I had demanded a ticket from Sanganer after another candidate was given a ticket from Ramgarh but the party did not fulfil my demands. Therefore, I decided to contest as an independent candidate from Sanganer,” Ahuja said in Jaipur. He said gauraksha, construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya and Hindutva will be the planks on which he would fight the polls.
Alwar’s Ramgarh was in news recently after the lynching of a Muslim man on the suspicion of cow-smuggling. Ahuja claimed that the man was not killed by a mob but by the police in the July incident.