Arvinder Singh Lovely resigned as the Delhi Congress president of the Congress a little over six months after impressing the national leadership of the party by waving party flags in Sikh-dominated Tilak Nagar, signifying the party’s return to an area affected by the anti-Sikh riots. This was Lovely’s second resignation from the position.
The party was quick to declare the event a success at the time, pitching him as “Dilli ka Sardar.” Lovely’s “proven success” at the rally, according to a top Delhi Congress leader, opened the door for it to gradually connect with and win over a greater number of Sikh voters in the Capital. Some in the state unit think that his resignation may harm the AAP-Congress alliance in Sikh-dominated Assembly constituencies.
“Many supporters, both dormant Congress workers as well as new ones, from the Sikh community who Lovely struck a chord with since October won’t be happy with the party over the allegations he has raised,” said the Congress functionary.
“This episode will have a negative impact on the AAP-Congress alliance in Assembly segments such as Tilak Nagar, Hari Nagar, Rajouri Garden, Laxmi Nagar, Civil Lines, and Jangpura, just to name a few which come under the West Delhi, North East Delhi, and Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha seats,” the leader added.
According to Congress officials, Lovely had been informed that a number of veteran members of the party will receive Lok Sabha tickets. It is reported that he was upset that Kanhaiya Kumar was given the ticket and that he intended to run in more Delhi North East elections. The former leader of the Delhi Congress also criticised Deepak Babaria, the AICC’s in-charge, in his resignation letter.
The party officials stated that Lovely was one of “a significant section of senior Delhi Congress leaders” who might “form a political, anti-corruption front” against the AAP in the National Capital, seemingly hinting at additional resignations and exits in the days to come.
“These are the same leaders whom the AAP daily targeted when it first arrived on the scene … Leaders such as Lovely, Sandeep Dikshit, and Rajkumar Chauhan (who quit the party last week) were told that they would be fielded in the Lok Sabha to reclaim their lost political ground,” said a Congress leader, adding, “But the party’s senior leadership, at Deepak Babaria’s suggestion, disowned them at the last moment and that too very disrespectfully.”
Lovely’s resignation came a day after more than a thousand members of the Sikh community, including office-bearers of the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, joined the BJP in the presence of its national president J P Nadda.
Criticising Lovely, the party’s former Congress Okhla MLA Asif Mohammad Khan said, “You can have complaints against Babaria, so go to the high command and get them sorted quietly. When Sheila Dikshit was made the DPCC president, she too was brought from Uttar Pradesh. Did Sandeep Dikshit ever question why his mother, an MP from UP, was given charge of the DPCC?”
Khan dismissed Lovely’s concerns about the alliance with AAP, raised in his resignation letter, saying, “Who was coordinating with the AAP? Lovelyji was going, Subhash Chopra was going, and Haroon Yusuf was going … I have been getting calls for several days too and being pressured into joining this bid … I will not do so and will remain with the Congress. Even I wasn’t in favour of allying with the AAP, but when the high command decided, we went ahead with the directions and will continue to do so.”
At the age of thirty, Lovely became the youngest minister in the Sheila Dikshit cabinet five years after becoming the youngest MLA from Delhi in 1998. During her three terms, he was given important positions like education, transport, and urban development as he was seen as the then-chief minister’s confidant. During his reign, Delhi’s iconic Blueline buses were replaced with low-floor buses in the colours green, red, and orange.
When Delhi became the first state to introduce a 25% reservation for students from the Economically Weaker Section in private schools, Lovely was the minister of education. When the decision was first taken in 2012–2013 to regularise unapproved colonies, he served as the Minister of Urban Development. However, it took a while for the plan to be approved by the Centre and put into action, which occurred in 2018–19, the year the BJP controlled the Centre.
Lovely contributed to providing “outside support” to the AAP in 2013, which allowed it to form a government that lasted for 49 days, despite being singled out by the party for alleged corruption. When the AAP delivered the Delhi Congress a catastrophic loss in the 2015 Assembly elections, he was leading the party. Lovely then tendered her resignation as president of the DPCC for the first time.
He abruptly left the Congress in the midst of the 2017 municipal elections, blaming the Gandhi family for the party’s current state of disarray. He joined the BJP right away, but after not getting very far there, he left and joined the Congress again in the beginning of 2018. As the only leader from Delhi chosen for the party’s inaugural four-member Central Election Authority, which oversaw the votes that resulted in Mallikarjun Kharge becoming the party’s first non-Gandhi president in 24 years, in October 2022, he was considered to be in the “good books” of the Gandhi family.
