Former Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely on Saturday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Lovely had left the Congress party last week after resigning as the Delhi unit chief of the party. His switch to the BJP comes amid ongoing Lok Sabha elections. This will be his second stint in the BJP.
Former Delhi minister Raj Kumar Chauhan and MLAs Neerajy Basoya and Naseeb Singh also joined the BJP.
Lovely had been a minister in the Sheila Dixit-led Delhi government and had previously also served as the chief of the party’s Delhi unit.
In the seven-phase general elections, Delhi will vote on May 25 in the sixth phase. While the first phase was held on April 19, the final round will be held on June 1. The counting of votes will take place on June 4 and results are expected on the same day.
Lovely hails PM Modi’s leadership
As he joined the BJP, Lovely hailed the leadership of the party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He thanked them for giving him and fellow new entrants an opportunity when they felt lost.
Lovely and others joined the BJP in the presence of Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri and BJP General Secretary Vinod Tawde.
Lovely said that Modi is set to return as the prime minister with a big majority in the ongoing elections.
In his resignation letter addressed to Congress President Mallikarjuna Kharge, he had said the Delhi unit of the party was being sidelined by the party high command. He said that all unanimous decisions taken by the senior Delhi unit leaders were “unilaterally vetoed” by All India Congress Committee (AICC) Delhi In-Charge Deepak Babria, as per PTI.
Lovely further said that the Delhi unit was against the party’s alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), but the central leadership went ahead with it anyway, as per the agency.
The to and fro of Lovely between Congress & BJP
This will be Lovely’s second tenure in the BJP. Previously, he was in the party briefly during 2017-18.
In 2017, Lovely quit the Congress and joined the BJP. At the time, he had hit out at the party’s leadership and said it had “died”. Just like now, he had also praised Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the time, saying that the two had redefined Indian politics.
It was later reported that he had differences with Congress leader Ajay Maken.
“The child has died. The party is finished…Nobody took note of his grievances. Several leaders in the Congress are feeling suffocated for the past two years,” said Lovely at the time, as per PTI.
In 2018, Lovely rejoined the Congress and said that he was an “ideological misfit” in the BJP.
“I was ideologically misfit in the BJP. I realised this from the next day I joined the party,” said Lovely at the time.
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Delhi Congress leader Arvinder Singh Lovely joins BJP again, praises PM Modi, again
