Ahead of polls, Congress’ Arvinder Singh Lovely joins BJP

Delhi Congress leader Arvinder Singh Lovely joins BJP citing unilateral decisions and issues with AAP alliance.

Congress leader Arvinder Singh Lovely has joined the BJP. He resigned as the Delhi Congress president on April 28 saying that he had found himself “handicapped and unable to continue” as all unanimous decisions taken by the Delhi Congress have been unilaterally vetoed by the AICC general secretary (Delhi In-charge) Deepak Babaria. At that time, Mr. Lovely said that he was only resigning from his post and not quitting the party.

In his letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Mr. Lovely pointed out that the Delhi unit was against an alliance with the AAP which was formed on the “sole basis of levelling false, fabricated and mala fide corruption charges” against the Congress party. He noted that the State unit fell in line with the party’s decision.

The AAP and the Congress are fighting four and three seats each of the seven Lok Sabha seats in the capital as INDIA bloc partners to defeat the BJP.

He also highlighted other issues the local unit faced in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election, including the selection of “outsiders” as candidates. He said that “the party high command rejected the views of the Delhi Congress, observers and local party workers on the North West Delhi and North East Delhi seats, giving it to Udit Raj and Kanhaiya Kumar, respectively, who were total strangers to the Delhi Congress and the party policies”.

He added that it was the prerogative of AICC to have a final say on candidates but the Delhi Congress was not even informed of the decision before the formal announcement.

(With inputs from PTI)