Delhi Cong chief quits, cites AAP tie-up as main reason

NEW DELHI: In a major setback to the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Arvinder Singh Lovely resigned as the party’s Delhi unit chief, citing the alliance with the AAP as one of the reasons.

In his resignation letter sent to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday, Lovely also said that he found himself handicapped as all unanimous decisions taken by senior Delhi unit leaders have been “unilaterally vetoed” by AICC Delhi in-charge Deepak Babria.

“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... half of the cabinet ministers (of AAP) are presently in jail on corruption charges,” he said in his letter.

“Despite that, the party (Congress) decided to ally with the AAP in Delhi. We respected the party’s final decision...,” he said.

Lovely also criticised Congress North East Delhi candidate Kanhaiya Kumar for heaping praise on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is behind bars in a money laundering case. “We are fighting the elections together but never did the Congress workers say that we are giving a clean chit to them or giving them credit for building schools and hospitals, which is far from the reality,” Lovely said, referring to the party’s tie-up with the AAP in Delhi.

He also rejected suggestions that he resigned due to unhappiness over ticket distribution and asserted that he is not joining any other political party.