BJP leader Arvinder Singh Lovely on Wednesday said he would rather exit politics than rejoin the Congress, days after he quit the party following his resignation from the post of its Delhi unit chief.
This is Mr. Lovely’s second stint in the BJP, the earlier one being just six months long. He had rejoined the Congress in 2018.
Not an impulse
“Last time, I quit the Congress due to anger. This time, I made the decision with a cool head and much thought,” Mr. Lovely told reporters at the Delhi BJP office.
His resignation had come as a surprise to the Congress ahead of the May 25 Lok Sabha polling in the Capital, where the party is battling to make a comeback after failing to win any of the seven seats since 2014.
Mr. Lovely had quit the party chief’s post citing the lack of a free hand and had also expressed reservations about the seat-sharing pact with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Initially, he had maintained that he would not join the BJP but later jumped ship, saying his supporters wanted him to play an active role in Delhi politics.
Mr. Lovely refuted the allegation that he quit the Congress in the hope of a position in the BJP, and slammed his former party for giving the election ticket to “those who wanted the country’s Balkanisation”, in a veiled reference to Congress candidate Kanhaiya Kumar, who was earlier accused of hosting a controversial event when in JNU.
