Arvinder Singh Lovely Resigns as Delhi Congress Chief over Party’s Alliance with AAP
Arvinder Singh Lovely, the chief of the Delhi Congress, announced his resignation on Sunday, with less than a month remains until voting in seven parliamentary seats in the nation’s capital due to the party’s alliance with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), raising the possibility of divisions within the state unit of the Congress.
Four-term MLA Lovely resigned from the Congress and blamed the party high command for giving Lok Sabha tickets to candidates who were “total strangers” to the Delhi Congress and its policies. Lovely was referring to Udit Raj’s candidacy in North-West Delhi and Kanhaiya Kumar’s in Northeast Delhi. Lovely addressed his resignation letter to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.
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“The Delhi Congress Unit was against an alliance with a Party which was formed on the sole basis of levelling false, fabricated and malafide corruption charges against the Congress Party. Despite that, the Party made a decision to ally with the AAP in Delhi…,” wrote Arvinder Singh Lovely.
The Congress will compete in three seats as part of the seat-sharing agreement with the AAP, while the AAP will run a candidate in four national capital seats where the BJP won all seven seats in 2014 and 2019. In addition to North-East and North West Delhi, the Congress is running for the Chandni Chowk seat, which it previously held three times, in 1984, 1989, and 1996, with veteran politician JP Agarwal in the race.
Lovely said that two candidates who were complete outsiders to the Delhi Congress were awarded the North-West and Northeast Delhi parliamentary seats, out of the three seats awarded to the Congress.
“It is the High Command’s right to make the final decision regarding the Party Candidates; however, it is shocking that the PCC was not even informed prior to the official announcement once the High Command made the decision regarding the aforementioned 2 Candidates,” he continued.
