New Delhi, Apr 28 (PTI) Arvinder Singh Lovely on Sunday rejected suggestions that he resigned as the Congress’ Delhi unit chief due to unhappiness over ticket distribution and asserted that he is not joining any other political party.
His clarification came after Congress ex-MLA Asif Mohammad Khan claimed that the BJP would field Lovely from the East Delhi constituency, replacing Harsh Malhotra, while AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj also fuelled speculation about the saffron party changing its candidate.
In his resignation letter to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday, Lovely was critical of Kanhaiya Kumar, the party candidate from North East Delhi, and North West Delhi nominee Udit Raj, and said they are total strangers to the Delhi Congress and party policies.
“Some people are spreading misinformation that I was upset over ticket (distribution). It is not like that. You all know that I introduced the candidates by holding a press conference three days ago,” Lovely said at a press conference at his house.
“I have only resigned as Delhi Congress chief and I am not joining any political party,” he said.
Lovely said his resignation reflected the pain of Congress workers saddened by the fact that the “ideals they had been fighting for during the last seven to eight years” were being compromised.
“We are fighting the elections together but never did the Congress workers say that we are giving a clean chit to them or giving them credit for building schools and hospitals, which is far from the reality,” Lovely said, referring to the party’s tie-up with the AAP in Delhi for the Lok Sabha polls.
Earlier in the day, AAP’s Bharadwaj asked in a post in Hindi on X, without naming anyone, if the BJP was changing its candidate for East Delhi.
Questioned about Bharadwaj’s post and whether he was joining the BJP, Lovely reiterated that he only resigned as the Delhi Congress chief.
“Thanks for Bharadwaj’s wishes. I think he takes decisions on behalf of all other parties. I have just cleared to you that I resigned from the post of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president,” Lovely said.
In the afternoon, a group of Congress workers held a protest against Kanhaiya Kumar outside the Congress election office near Maujpur metro station in North East Delhi.
“We need a local candidate, we don’t want an outsider,” Navdeep Sharma, one of the protesters, told PTI Video.
Another protester said, “We had raised objections earlier but our voices were not heard. We don’t like Kanhaiya Kumar.” In a setback to the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Lovely resigned as the party’s Delhi unit chief, citing the alliance with the AAP as one of the reasons.
He said the Congress’ Delhi unit was against the alliance but the party high command went ahead with it.
“The Delhi Congress unit was against an alliance with a party which was formed on the sole basis of levelling false, fabricated and mala fide corruption charges against the Congress party … half of the cabinet ministers (of the party) are presently in jail on corruption charges,” Lovely said in his resignation letter to Kharge.
“Despite that, the party (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 Mr (Arvind) Kejriwal’s residence on the night of his arrest along with Mr Subash Chopra and Mr Sandeep Dikshit, despite the same being against my position on the matter,” he said.
The Congress is contesting the Lok Sabha elections in an alliance with AAP in Delhi. As part of its seat-share arrangement, the Congress is contesting from three seats while AAP has fielded candidates from four constituencies in the national capital.
Lovely had resigned as chief of the Congress’ Delhi unit in 2015, taking moral responsibility for the party’s worst-ever performance in the assembly elections.
The Congress had failed to win a single seat in the 70-member House as AAP swept to victory in 67 constituencies and the BJP won three.
Lovely contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 from East Delhi against the BJP’s Gautam Gambhir and AAP candidate Atishi, securing 24 per cent votes.
Gambhir won the seat by 3.93 lakh votes ahead of Lovely in second.
Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats will go to the polls in the sixth phase on May 25. PTI NIT SLB SZM
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