Arvinder Singh Lovely takes U-turn! Joins back Congress
NEW DELHI : Former Delhi Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely who had switched over to the BJP in April last year rejoined the Congress party on Saturday in the presence of Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken and Congress’ Delhi in-charge P. C. Chacko.
Before the photo-op at the 24 Akbar Road headquarters of the Congress party, the Delhi Congress leader met party President Rahul Gandhi at his residence. Mr. Lovely, who was a minister in the Sheila Dikshit government and is known to be close to the former Delhi Chief Minister, told the media that “he had left the party in pain.
” Mr. Lovely had left after Mr. Maken replaced him as the chief of party’s Delhi unit.”I was an ideological misfit in the BJP,”said Mr. Lovely at a brief interaction with the media after his re-induction into the Congress.
Lovely had left the Congress party back in April after he alleged that Congress was getting involved in bribery during the ticket distribution for the MCD polls. He stated that the decision of joining the BJP party was not taken at the right time as it was weak moment for him. Commenting on Lovely’s homecoming, former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit said that she was very happy after she heard the reports of Lovely joining the Congress party again.
Commenting on his sudden decision of joining back his old party, the Congress leader said that he was ideologically a misfit in the BJP
After meeting BJP president, Lovely stated that many Congress leaders now feel suffocated as the Congress party is not what it used to be. Apart from Lovely, Delhi Youth Congress chief Amit Malik had also joined BJP.
Ms. Dikshit addressed a joint press conference against the Aam Admi Party (AAP) government’s third anniversary in Delhi in an effort to show a picture of unity.The Delhi unit of the Congress has witnessed factionalism with both Ms. Dikshit and Mr. Maken openly blaming each other for the party’s debacle in the assembly election in 2015 in which it didn’t win a single seat.
A four-time MLA, Lovely was first elected to the Delhi Legislative Assembly in 1998. Lovely joins the Congress at a time when rapprochement between Ajay Maken and Sheila Dikshit, always known to be rivals, seems likely.
Lovely’s return is seen as a shot in the arm for the Congress with 20 seats up for the grabs in Delhi by polls. The by-elections were necessitated after an Election Commission recommended disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs for holding office of profit while serving as Parliamentary Secretaries between March 13, 2015, and September 8, 2016.(With Agency Inputs ).
