Suraj Pal Amu, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader who announced a Rs 10-crore reward for the beheading of actor Deepika Padukone and Padmavati director Sanjay Leela Bhansali on November 19, resigned from his party post on Wednesday. He was the BJP’s chief media coordinator in Haryana.

Amu will, however, continue as a worker for the party, PTI reported.

Padmavati, starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, has been in the midst of a controversy since January when members of the Rajput Karni Sena assaulted Bhansali on the set of the movie in Jaipur. The shooting location was then changed to Maharashtra. The historical drama is based on the life of Rajput Queen Padmini, the protagonist of sixteenth-century poet Malik Muhammad Jaisi’s Avadhi poem Padmavat.

In a resignation letter Amu sent to the state BJP chief Subhash Barala, Amu said he was upset that Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had skipped a meeting he had arranged with representatives of the Rajput Karni Sena on Tuesday.

Amu said he was “pained” at Khattar’s behaviour. “I have never seen a BJP chief minister so arrogant who does not respect party workers and community representatives,” he told ANI.

Amu had announced his controversial bounty amid growing protests against Padmavati. He also said Rajputs in Gujarat would vote for the BJP in the upcoming Assembly elections only if Padmavati was banned.

“I want to congratulate the Meerut youth who announced a Rs 5-crore bounty for beheading Deepika Padukone and Sanjay Leela Bhansali,” Amu had said at a gathering. “We will reward those who behead them with Rs 10 crore and also take care of their family’s needs.”

The party had issued Amu a show-cause notice after his remarks.

The Karni Sena is against a supposed romantic scene between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji, even though Bhansali had said the film did not have any such sequence.