Days after stepping down as Congress’s Delhi unit chief, Arvinder Singh joins BJP

Tribune New Delhi

New Delhi, May 4

In a jolt to the Congress party’s Delhi unit, its former chief Arvinder Singh Lovely on Saturday joined the BJP with four other senior leaders. His exit from the Congress has come just six days after he had put in his papers as the party’s city chief, citing his inability to continue on the post as he felt “handicapped”, expressing his unhappiness over the party’s alliance with AAP for Lok Sabha elections.

Three-term MLA had joined NCP

• The Congress received a boost after former Assembly Speaker and three-term ex-MLA Yoganand Shastri on Saturday returned to the party fold, almost three years after he had joined the NCP
• Interim Delhi Congress chief Devendra Yadav and Delhi in-charge Deepak Babaria welcomed Shastri back into the party fold
• He had resigned from the Congress in January 2020, weeks before the Assembly elections, alleging that the party’s city unit was indulging in the sale of tickets

Along with Lovely, veteran Delhi Congress leaders Rajkumar Chauhan, Naseeb Singh and Neeraj Basoya, as well as former Youth Congress president Amit Malik also joined the BJP. Chauhan was a minister in Sheila Dikshit’s government and is a former MLA from Mongolpuri. Naseeb Singh and Basoya are also former MLAs, and had resigned soon after Lovely had stepped down as city Congress chief, citing displeasure over “outsiders” like Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj being nominated as the party’s candidates from North East Delhi and North West Delhi, respectively.

Lovely has joined the BJP for the second time. He had left the Congress and joined the saffron party in 2017 as well. Back then, however, he had returned to the Congress in 2018, after spending nine months in the BJP.

A former Education Minister in the erstwhile Sheila Dikshit government, Lovely had resigned as Delhi Congress chief in 2015 as well. On April 28, when Lovely had resigned as city unit’s chief, he had said that he had only quit the post and not the party.

In a letter to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, he had pointed out that the Delhi unit was against an alliance with AAP, which was formed on the “sole basis of levelling false, fabricated and mala fide corruption charges” against the Congress.

He had 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 had said: “The party high command rejected the views of 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 are total strangers to the party policies.”

There are speculations that the BJP might consider Lovely as a candidate from East Delhi from where the party has already declared Harsh Malhotra as its candidate.