New Delhi: Overcoming a lot of pulls and pressures within the party, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and party chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday finally decided to name old hand Arvinder Singh Lovely as the new head of the Delhi unit.
Lovely, a former minister and a close aide of three-term chief minister Sheila Dikshit, replaces Anil Chaudhary. The appointment is important in more ways than one. Lovely beat senior leader Devender Yadav, who was close to becoming the Delhi unit chief, in a tightly contested race and the former minister’s appointment came on a day the third meeting of the INDIA alliance began in Mumbai.
The Congress high command is exploring an alliance with AAP for the 2024 elections despite strong objections from the Delhi and Punjab units. On his part, outgoing Delhi unit chief Anil Chaudhary had been a strong critic of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP party. “I congratulate my elder brother for becoming the new Delhi chief,” Anil Chaudhary told ETV Bharat.
"I hope his appointment will restrengthen the party in Delhi," former MP JP Agarwal told this channel. Lovely went to the BJP in 2017 but returned within a year saying leaving Congress was an unhappy choice and that he was a misfit in the saffron party. Since then, he has been lying low in the party and his comeback on Thursday surprised many in the grand old party.
Devender Yadav is AICC in charge of Uttarakhand and a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee but has been active in Delhi politics as well. Soon after Rahul and Kharge reviewed the party’s preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Delhi with senior state leaders on August 16, the former party chief had called a second meeting of 10 senior leaders where he discussed Delhi politics with them one-on-one and sought their opinion on who should be the next Congress chief.
According to party insiders, most senior leaders had suggested the name of Devender Yadav while pointing out that Lovely’s brief stay with the BJP had cast a shadow on his otherwise bright track record in the Congress. Interestingly, Ajay Maken was the state unit chief when Lovely had returned to the Congress in 2018 after getting a nod from Rahul. Yet, both Rahul and Kharge opted for Lovely, ignoring his defection and focusing instead on his organizational abilities and general acceptance among the workers.
Lovely, a four-term MLA and a former minister, was removed as the state unit chief in 2015, the year AAP swept Delhi. His brief now would be to regroup the Congress in the national capital against the AAP so that the grand old party is able to contest all the seven parliamentary seats on its own, should a pact with AAP not work out. Further, having a Sikh as Delhi unit chief would also help the Congress counter the AAP in Punjab, said party insiders.
“I wish the Delhi Congress regains its lost glory and public support under his leadership. I hope there will be new energy in the organization. I congratulate him and thank party president Kharge ji and former president Rahul ji for the decision,” Congress spokesperson Ragini Nayak said.
