Delhi Cong chief Lovely quits post citing LS ticket to outsiders, alliance with AAP

New Delhi, April 28 (IANS) In a huge setback to the Congress, its Delhi unit chief Arvinder Singh Lovely has resigned from the party post.

This comes amid the ongoing seven-phase Lok Sabha elections and Delhi is scheduled to go to polls on May 25.

In a four-page letter to party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday, Arvinder Singh Lovely expressed anguish over the functioning of the Congress general secretary.

He said, "All unanimous decisions taken by the senior Delhi Congress leaders have been unilaterally vetoed by the AICC general secretary (Delhi in-charge). Since my appointment as DPCC president, the AICC general secretary has not allowed me to make any senior appointments in the DPCC. My request for the appointment of a veteran leader as media head of DPCC was blatantly rejected. To date AICC general secretary has not allowed the DPCC to appoint all block presidents in the city resultantly more than 150 blocks in Delhi do not presently have block presidents."

Expressing his unhappiness over the party's alliance with the Aam Adami Party (AAP) in the national capital, he said, "The Delhi Congress unit was against an alliance with a party, which was formed on the sole basis of levelling false fabricated and mala fide corruption charges against the Congress party and in turn whose half the cabinet minister is currently in jail on corruption charges. Despite that, the party decided to ally with AAP in Delhi."

Lovely also expressed his dissatisfaction over the selection of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections for Delhi seats.

He said, ".. given the limited number of seats granted to the Congress party in the alliance in Delhi, in the interest of the party in Delhi and in order to ensure that the tickets are allotted to the senior Congress colleagues, I publicly withdrew my name and opted out from being considered as a potential candidate. Out of these three seats, while rejecting the views of the DPCC, all observers and the local party workers, the North-West Delhi and Northeast Delhi seats were given to two candidates who were total strangers to Delhi Congress and party policies."

The party has fielded Jai Prakash Agarwal, Udit Raj and Kanhaiya Kumar from three Delhi constituencies. Out of these Agarwal is a veteran of many elections and represented Chandni Chowk thrice earlier.

In the letter, he mentioned the protests that happened after the three names were declared and how he was forced to suspend some leaders.

"I tried to diffuse the situation by publicly stating that in a democratic party system, all party members have a right to voice their dissent. However, in direct contravention of my public democratic stand, the AICC general secretary distressingly asked me to suspend Mr Raj Kumar Chauhan (ex-Delhi Minister), Mr Surender Kumar (ex-MLA) and other party functionaries from the party. He, instead of calming the situation, further also, in the public meetings entered into numeric heated exchanges with Mr Sandeep Dikshit (ex-MP), Mr Raj Kumar Chauhan (ex-Delhi Minister), Mr Bhsham Sharma (ex-MLA) and Mr Surender Kuymar (ex-MLA)."

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