New DelhiIn a blow to the Congress-AAP prospects in Delhi, the State party chief and veteran Congress leader Arvinder Singh Lovely quit from his post on Sunday, citing differences over candidate selection for the Lok Sabha polls and alliance with AAP.

Although Singh emphatically said that he will not be crossing over to the BJP, speculations run high that he would join the saffron camp. Former Congress MLA Asif Mohammad Khan claimed that BJP would be fielding Lovely from East Delhi.

Lovely’s resignation brings to fore the simmering discontent in the Congress’s State Unit over its alliance with AAP — which wiped out the Congress from Delhi — and also the management of the unit by the central party, especially the All India Congress Committee (AICC) incharge Deepak Babria. Just a few days ago, another prominent Delhi leader and former Minister in Shiela Dikshit’s Government, Rajkumar Chouhan, had resigned alleging mismanagement of the city’s affairs by Deepak Babria who originally comes from Gujarat.

In his resignation letter to the Party President Mallikarjun Kharge, Lovely complained about Babria saying, “Since my appointment as (Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) President, the AICC General Secretary (Delhi In-charge Deepak Babria) 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, the AICC General Secretary (Delhi In-charge) has not allowed the DPCC to appoint all Block presidents in the city. Resultantly more than 150 blocks in Delhi do not presently have a Block President.”

“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. Despite that, the Party made a decision to ally with the AAP in Delhi,” he said.

He then talked about the candidate selection in Delhi and the alliance with AAP. He said he was trying to respect the party’s decision but it did not reflect the wish of the majority of the workers in Delhi. He particularly referred to the statements made by Kanhaiya Kumar, former JNU president and Congress candidate from North East Delhi.

“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 AAP’s false propaganda of the development of Delhi and was in fact, a compromise — to improve the chances of victory for the Party as part of the National Alliance,” Lovely said.

The seat-sharing agreement for Lok Sabha polls between the INDIA bloc partners in Delhi, AAP and Congress, was finalised on February. The AAP is contesting four seats, while the Congress fielded candidates in three constituencies. The AAP is fighting in New Delhi, South Delhi, West Delhi and East Delhi, while Chandni Chowk, North East Delhi, and North West Delhi went to the Congress.

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