Two days after he was left out of the BJP’s list of candidates, sitting corporator Dipak Shrivastav, son of Waghodia BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastav, filed his nomination Saturday as an independent candidate from Ward 15 of the Vadodara civic body.

Dipak, who is a two-term corporator, had won the first term as an independent before joining the BJP.

On the last date of the filing of nominations, Dipak reached the election office with his supporters and filed the nomination from Ward 15.

Dipak said, “I have full faith in the people of my ward. They know I have been there with them whenever they have needed me in the past and my only aim is to serve the people. I don’t need the backing of a party to go good work.”

Madhu Shrivastav, who had hinted after the party’s announcement of the list of candidates February 4 that Dipak would take the route to become an independent candidate, had demanded tickets for his wife and daughter as well. The father and son, have however, not yet resigned from the BJP.

MLA Shrivastav, who is also the chairman of the Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation Ltd., said, “We have full faith in the party that they will do justice to the hard work we have given to the party in every election. My son has been denied ticket on the basis of the new policy that relatives of persons holding positions will not be given preference. But the fact is that almost half the candidates are related to someone or the other.”

Dipak Shrivastav’s ticket from Ward 15 was improbable to begin with due to the lobbying for the current candidate, Ashish Joshi, who has replaced him.

Of the four seats in the ward two are reserved for women and one is a reserved seat for Scheduled Tribes. A senior party functionary of the BJP said, “Joshi was also the recommendation of a sitting MLA and party found his credentials to be very apt for the ticket. Dipak has already been a corporator for two terms and moreover he couldn’t fit into any other ward. Plus, another contention was that Dipak had a third biological child during his last tenure as the corporator and, therefore, his candidature would have been invalidated as per the election rules.”

When asked if the two-child norm for candidates contesting polls came in the way, Dipak told this newspaper, “As of today, I have only two biological children who carry my name.” Dipak also added that the norm wouldn’t affect the validity of his candidature and he had turned down the offer of a ticket from another national party.

Incidentally, the BJP on Saturday appointed MLA Shailesh Mehta alias Sotta the incharge of the election ward 15, where he had been co-corporator with Dipak in the last term.

Mehta had retained his seat as a civic body representative after being elected MLA from Dabhoi constituency in 2017.