Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely resigns, cites fallout with party leader

In his resignation letter, sent to party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday (April 27), Lovely accused the general secretary of Congress’ Delhi unit, Deepak Babaria, of not allowing him to function and “unilaterally” vetoing all decisions taken by senior leaders of the Delhi unit.

“Since my appointment as DPCC (Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee) president, the AICC general secretary (Delhi-in-charge) has not allowed me to make any senior appointments in the DPCC,” Lovely said .

He cited examples of Babaria’s alleged refusal to appoint a media head for DPCC as per Lovely’s recommendation and not allowing the DPCC to appoint the presidents for over 150 blocks.

Lovely also objected to the Congress’ decision to field Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj -- whom he dubbed as “total strangers to the Delhi Congress and the party policies” -- from the North-East Delhi and North-West Delhi Lok Sabha constituencies respectively.

He accused Raj of stirring “anti-party sentiments” and Kanhaiya of praising Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his government’s policies in direct violation of the Congress’ party line.

“Such ill-thought and factually incorrect statements have not gone down well with the local party unit since the local party workers had an inherent understanding that the alliance was not done in appreciation of the AAP’s false propaganda of the development of Delhi and was in fact a compromise to improve the chances of the party as part of the National Alliance,” he said taking a dig at Kanhaiya.

Lovely had assumed charge of the post in August last year.