Along with Lovely, state youth president Amit Malik also joined the saffron party
In a serious jolt to the Congress party ahead of the municipal corporation elections in Delhi, former state party president Arvinder Singh Lovely and state youth president Amit Malik joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday.
The shift by Lovely, who was a key minister in the Sheila Dikshit-led government and also a Congress loyalist, into the saffron fold could be a crucial factor in the civic polls, to be held on Sunday.
Lashing out at the current leaders of the Grand Old Party, Lovely said: "The child has died. The party is finished." Till two years ago, Lovely was guiding the entire Congress team after the party was almost decimated in the Delhi Assembly elections in 2013.
Lovely has won the Legislative Assembly elections four consecutive times since he was elected for the first time in 1998. His exit has now opened the gates for other senior Congress leaders to join BJP as well. Many Congress leaders have reported feeling suffocated under the current regime and have stated that their views and suggestions are ignored. They may now follow Lovely's example, despite holding "ideological differences" with the BJP.
Lovely joined the BJP in the presence of party's national president Amit Shah, Union Minister Vijay Goel, and state unit president Manoj Tiwari. Commenting on senior leader AK Walia's plan to leave Congress, Lovely said: "Nobody took note of his grievances. Several leaders in the Congress are feeling suffocated for the last two years."
In 2013 Assembly elections, wherein Congress had bagged eight seats, the party was led by Lovely, who had managed to retain his seat from the Gandhi Nagar constituency despite several odds. Then after 49 days of governance, AAP, which had formed the government with the support of Congress, quit on February 14, 2014, paving way for the President's Rule in the state for almost a year. During this period, Lovely was at the helm of the city Congress and for a year, the leader made all attempts to revive the party. But then just before the 2015 Assembly polls, he was removed and Ajay Maken was chosen to lead the party.
The resentment among leaders reached its zenith when AK Walia and Amrish Gautam announced their decision to quit the party recently. The Congress managed to hold back Walia but lost Gautam to BJP. Things, however, did not settle down and many city leaders have met several times since then to discuss the issue.
Sources in the Congress said more than 20 prominent leaders from Delhi, including a few former parliamentarians, may eventually join BJP. These disgruntled leaders include Parvesh Hashmi, Sandeep Dikshit, Nand Kishore, Raj Kumar Chauhan, A K Walia, Monika Malhotra, Subhash Chopra, Barkha Shukla Singh, Ashok Singh, Rajesh Lilothia, Yoganand Shastri, and others.
All these leaders have been reported to be unhappy with the current party leadership. The party that ruled Delhi for 15 long years through its leader Sheila Dikshit could not get even a single seat in 2015 Assembly polls, leading to the leadership to send Maken to the city politics. The Congress was decimated by the newbie, Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP.
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