The Bharatiya Janata Party has removed its Ghaziabad unit president Ajay Sharma after he, along with another 100 others, had tried to disrupt the wedding of a Hindu woman and a Muslim man in the city last week, IANS reported. The protestors had termed the marriage a case of “love jihad” and had clashed with police personnel deployed outside the woman’s house.

“Love jihad” is a term frequently used by Hindutva organisations to allege a conspiracy by Muslim men to marry women from other religions solely to convert them to Islam.

Uttar Pradesh party president Mahendra Nath Pandey decided to sack Sharma on Tuesday, IANS reported, adding that Man Singh Goswami, the party’s Ghaziabad general secretary, will replace him.

“I will abide by the decision of the party leaders and I will continue to serve the party as a worker,” Sharma told the Hindustan Times. “They maintained that I should not have participated in the protest. I will further forward my point of view to the state unit leaders.”

Sharma claimed as the Ghaziabad city president, he had to be present during the incident for the party workers, The Indian Express reported. “For Hindutva and for party workers, I am willing to face bullets not just lathis [baton],” he told the newspaper.

On December 22, a group of over 100 right-wing activists were booked for rioting at the wedding of the couple, who married under the Special Marriage Act. The woman is a a psychologist and her husband, a business school graduate, works with a private company.

The case was lodged at the Kavi Nagar police station under Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 336 (endangering life and safety), 341 (wrongful restraint), 427 (mischief), 353 (using criminal force to deter public servant from discharging his duty) of the Indian Penal Code. Workers of the BJP, Shiv Sena and other Hindu organisations were booked.