May 04, 2024 04:59 PM IST
Party MLAs Basoya and Singh resigned on May 1 April following Lovely’s resignation attributing to similar issues citing opposition to Congress’s alliance with the AAP
New Delhi: Arvinder Singh Lovely, who quit Congress last week, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at its headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday along with former Delhi minister Rajkumar Chauhan, and two former Congress MLAs – Naseeb Singh and Neeraj Basyoa.
Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri welcomed Lovely and others by offering them the membership of the BJP besides bouquets.
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Lovely resigned as the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief on April 27, citing internal friction and alliance with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party for the Lok Sabha election 2024.
Also Read: Lok Sabha polls: How Lovely’s resignation as Delhi Congress chief can hurt party
Lovely in a letter to Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge said that party leaders did not care about the simmering conflicts.
He was appointed as the Congress chief for Delhi on August 31, 2023. Earlier, Lovely joined the BJP in April 2017 and returned to the Congress in February 2018.
Congress MLAs Basoya and Singh quit the party on May 1 following Lovely’s resignation attributing to similar issues citing opposition to Congress’s alliance with the AAP.
Meanwhile, former Delhi minister Chauhan had resigned from the Congress, alleging “humiliation” by Delhi Congress in-charge Deepak Babaria. He resigned from the party on April 24.
Congress and the AAP are contesting the general elections in multiple states as part of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc. The two parties in February finalised their seat-sharing agreement for the polls in Delhi, according to which, the AAP will contest from four of the seven seats in the Capital, while the Congress has fielded candidates for the remaining three constituencies.
The seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi will go to polls on May 25.
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alok K N Mishra is a journalist with the Hindustan Times, New Delhi. He writes on governance, policy and politics. He is an ardent follower of politics and is fascinated about making politics work better for the middle-class and the poor. He loves to discuss and predict the national political behaviour. Before shifting to Delhi, he covered political instability, governance, and misgovernance besides Maoists insurgency in Jharkhand for almost half a decade. He started out in 2010 as a city reporter with Times of India, Patna.
