'Ready to work as party worker if…': Ex-Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely

Arvinder Singh Lovely said that the Delhi Congress opposed alliance with AAP, but the party's high command proceeded with it.

Day after resigning as Delhi Congress president, Arvinder Singh Lovely reiterated his displeasure with the party's pick for Lok Sabha 2024 candidates in the state. He said the city party committee should have been informed before the announcement.

Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely (HT Archive)

“PCC's (Pradesh Congress Committee) dignity needs to be maintained. Before officially declaring candidates, at least informally, the PCC must have been informed, but they didn't do it,” Lovely said. ANI reported.

"I can't work like that as PCC President, but I am ready to work as a Congress worker if they allow me to. If they don't want me, then it is a different case," Lovely said.

In his resignation letter, Lovely, who assumed leadership of the Delhi Congress in August last year, sharply criticised the party's alliance with the AAP. This alliance, he argued, directly influenced the decision to field Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj from the North East Delhi and North West Delhi constituencies, respectively, a move he found deeply problematic.

Lovely said that the Delhi Congress opposed the alliance, but the party's high command proceeded with it.

As per a seat-sharing agreement within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the Congress has fielded candidates for three of Delhi's seven Lok Sabha seats, while the AAP is contesting the remaining four seats.

Notably, both the parties are independently contesting the elections in Punjab.

On Sunday, a group of Congress workers staged a protest near the office of the party's Lok Sabha candidate for Northeast Delhi, Kanhaiya Kumar, urging the nomination of a local candidate for the seat.

"We want our own candidate or leader to fight otherwise. We should have a meeting so that we can express our feelings to the high command. We need a local candidate from among us; we don't want an outsider. Our dissatisfaction is not with anyone; we don't have any problem with anyone,” Navdeep Sharma, one of the protesters, told PTI.