Arvinder Singh Lovely joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on May 4, about a week after resigning from the post of Delhi Congress chief.
Following his resignation on 28 April, Lovely claimed that he would not join any political party and that he had only resigned from the post, not the party.
However, with his joining the BJP on Saturday, Lovely joins the long list of Congress leaders who have joined the saffron party during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Resigned twice from the post of Delhi Congress chief
This is not the first time that 55-year-old Lovely has left Congress and joined BJP. In fact, this is the second time in less than ten years that he has left the post of Delhi Congress chief and joined the BJP.
Also read: Lok Sabha Elections 2024: 10 high-profile leaders who joined BJP from Congress and their last election performance
In February 2015, Lovely resigned as Delhi Congress chief after the grand old party’s worst performance in the Delhi Assembly elections. The Congress, which ruled the national capital for 15 years under the leadership of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, failed to win a single seat in the 70-member Delhi Assembly.
Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had won 67 seats. The remaining three seats went to BJP’s account. Lovely, a four-time former Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), submitted his resignation to the then Congress President Sonia Gandhi, taking moral responsibility for the election defeat.
Two years later, on May 11, 2017, Lovely joined the BJP, a week before the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections. He had accused the Congress party of bribery during the distribution of tickets before the municipal elections. BJP won the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections in 2017.
‘Ideological discrepancy in BJP’
However, nine months later, on February 17, 2018, Lovely was readmitted to the Congress soon after a meeting with then party president Rahul Gandhi.
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“Leaving the Congress was not a happy decision… I was an ideological misfit in the BJP. It didn’t take long to realize this. Then I said to myself, I should do as much as I can for my parent party,” Lovely had told reporters in Delhi soon after joining the Congress party. Lovely was made the Delhi Congress president again in August 2023. .
Four-time former MLA
Lovely was a key minister in the Delhi government led by late Sheila Dikshit. He has won the Delhi Assembly elections four times since 1998 and has held important portfolios like education, tourism, urban development and transport as a minister in the Congress government.
Lovely contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the East Delhi seat on a Congress ticket and lost. He has lost. BJP candidate Gautam Gambhir won.
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Published: May 04, 2024, 07:48 PM IST
