Arvinder Lovely quits as Delhi Congress chief

New Delhi: In a major setback to the Congress during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, senior leader Arvinder Singh Lovely has resigned as the party’s Delhi unit chief, citing the alliance with the AAP as one of the reasons. While the AAP termed it an internal matter of its Delhi ally, the BJP called it “implosion” and claimed there will be further repercussions for the Congress.

Lovely’s resignation in protest against the alliance with AAP has brought the party’s factional feud out in the open, with a section of leaders on Sunday demanding the removal of AICC Delhi incharge Deepak Babaria.

In his resignation letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Lovely said the Delhi Congress unit was against the alliance with AAP. He also pointed out that all unanimous decisions taken by the senior Delhi unit leaders have been “unilaterally vetoed” by Babaria.

He also said that tickets were given to two people who are total strangers to the city Congress and party policies, while referring to the candidature of Kanhaiya Kumar from North-East Delhi and Udit Raj from North-East Delhi constituencies.

Later, at a press conference, Lovely made it clear that he has only resigned from the party post and is not joining any political party.

This is the second time that Lovely has stepped down from the post. Earlier, he had resigned in 2015, when the AAP swept the Assembly polls, winning 67 out of 70 seats.

Lovely’s resignation comes on the heels of former city minister Rajkumar Chauhan’s resignation, with insiders saying that more leaders will follow suit. Like Chauhan, Lovely also cited issues related to the functioning of Babaria and made allegations against his conduct.

In his resignation letter sent to the Congress president, Lovely said, “It is with a heavy heart that I write the present letter to you, finding myself handicapped and unable to continue as the president of the Delhi party unit. The Delhi Congress was against an alliance with a party that was formed on the sole basis of levelling false, fabricated and malafide corruption charges against the Congress party... Half of the Cabinet ministers (of the party) are presently in jail on corruption charges.”

“Despite that, the party (the Congress) made a decision to ally with the AAP in Delhi. We respected the party’s final decision... I even went to the extent of visiting Kejriwal’s residence on the night of his arrest along with Subash Chopra and Sandeep Dikshit, despite the same being against my position on the matter.”

Latching on to the opportunity to attack the Opposition, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said that Lovely has responded to the voice of his conscience and the implosion within the Congress started the moment the party announced its Lok Sabha candidates.