Rajasthan Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Gyan Dev Ahuja, who in 2016 had claimed that 3,000 used condoms and 3,000 liquor bottles are found daily at Jawaharlal Nehru University, quit the party on Sunday. Ahuja’s resignation came after his name did not figure in the BJP’s second list of candidates for the Assembly elections in the state.

The Assembly elections for 230 seats in Rajasthan will be held on December 7 and the results declared on December 11.

Ahuja told The Times of India that the distribution of tickets showed that there was “clear dictatorship and favouritism” in the BJP. He said he would contest as an independent from Sanganer constituency as “a large number of people have gathered at my residence and urged me”. “I have sent my resignation to Madan Lal Saini [BJP’s state president], and will file my nomination on Monday,” Ahuja added.

He said that his opponent in Sanganer, Ghanashyam Tiwari, was his “friend”. “He is my friend and we have worked together in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,” he said. “But how can I disobey the order of Hindu society. I am not contesting for myself, but for matters like cow protection, Hindutva and Ram Janmabhoomi.”

Ahuja also said he had “no regret” about the mob lynching of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan in Alwar in 2017,The Indian Express reported. “We should not take the law into our hands,” he said. “But we have no regret over his death because those who are cow-smugglers are cow-killers, sinners like them have met this fate earlier and will continue to do so.”