Delhi Congress Chief Resigns From Post Over Alliance With AAP For Lok Sabha Elections

With less than a month to go for polling across seven parliamentary seats in the national capital, Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely on Sunday announced his resignation from his post over its alliance with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), hinting cracks within the Congress state unit.

In his resignation to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Lovely, a four-term MLA, said the party high command gave Lok Sabha tickets to candidates who were “total strangers” to the Delhi Congress and the party policies, referring to Udit Raj’s candidature in North-west Delhi and Kanhaiya Kumar in Northeast Delhi.

“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.

As part of the seat-sharing deal with AAP, the Congress will contest three seats while the AAP will field its candidate in four constituencies in the national capital where the BJP swept all seven seats in 2014 and 2019. Besides North-East Delhi and North West Delhi, Congress is contesting Chandni Chowk seat where it fielded senior leader JP Agarwal, who won the seat thrice in 1984, 1989, and 1996.

Lovely stated that out of the 3 seats given to Congress, the North-West Delhi and Northeast Delhi Parliamentary seats were given to 2 Candidates who were total strangers to the Delhi Congress.

“Shockingly, once the High Command made the decision in regards to the aforesaid 2 Candidates, the PCC was not even intimated before the formal announcement,” he added.