2nd U-Turn: Days After Resigning As Delhi Congress Chief, Arvinder Singh Lovely Joins BJP

New Delhi: Days after stepping down as the Delhi Congress chief, Arvinder Singh Lovely on Saturday joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

This will be Lovely’s second stint in the saffron party. He had resigned from Congress in 2015 and joined BJP in 2017, before returning to the grand old party nine months later.

Former Congress MLAs Raj Kumar Chauhan, Naseeb Singh and Neeraj Basoya, and ex-Youth Congress president Amit Mallik also joined BJP.

Lovely had said after resigning from Congress last week that he won’t join BJP again.

His resignation wasn’t because he was unhappy with the party’s ticket distribution for Lok Sabha polls.

In his resignation letter addressed to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Lovely expressed anguish over Congress allying with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) despite many of its leaders being behind bars in the Delhi liquor policy case.

Lovely, who joined BJP ranks in the presence of Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri and national general secretary Vinod Tawde, thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leadership for giving him and others an opportunity to join the party.

“I have full hope that BJP government will form the government at the Centre with an overwhelming majority. In the coming days, the flag of BJP will fly in Delhi,” Lovely said.