Arvinder Singh Lovely joined the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on May 4, about a week after resigning as Congress chief in Delhi.
After resigning on April 28, Lovely claimed that he would not join any political party and had simply resigned, not from the party.
However, with his induction into the BJP on Saturday, Lovely has joined the long list of Congress defectors who have switched to the saffron party during the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Resigned twice as Delhi Cong Chief
This is not the first time that Lovely, 55, has left the Congress for the BJP. In fact, this is the second time in less than a decade that he has resigned as Delhi Congress chief and joined the BJP.
Also read: Lok Sabha elections 2024: 10 high-profile Congress defectors in the BJP and their last electoral performance
In February 2015, Lovely resigned as Delhi Congress chief after the grand old party's worst-ever performance in the Delhi Assembly elections. The Congress, which had ruled the national capital for 15 years under Prime Minister Shiela Dikshit, failed to win a single seat in the 70-member Delhi Assembly.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had won the elections by winning 67 seats. The remaining three seats were won by the BJP. The sweet, four-time former Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) submitted his resignation to the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi after taking moral responsibility for the election debacle.
Two years later, on May 11, 2017, Lovely joined the BJP, a week before the Delhi municipal elections. He had leveled allegations of bribery against the Congress party during the distribution of tickets ahead of the municipal polls. The BJP won the 2017 Delhi municipal elections.
'Ideological outsider in BJP'
However, nine months later on February 17, 2018, Lovely was reinducted into the Congress soon after meeting then party president Rahul Gandhi.
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“Leaving the Congress was not a happy decision…I was an ideological maverick in the BJP. It didn't take me long to realize that. Then I said to myself: I have to do as much as possible for my mother party.' Lovely had told reporters in Delhi soon after joining the Congress party. Lovely was re-appointed as Delhi Congress president in August 2023.
Ex-MLA for four terms
Lovely was a key minister in the late Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi. He has won the Delhi assembly elections four times since 1998 and has held important portfolios in education, tourism, urban development and transport as a minister in the Congress government.
Lovely unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket from the East Delhi seat. He lost. BJP candidate Gautam Gambhir won.
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Published: May 4, 2024 7:48 PM IST