Lovely initially claimed he would not join any political party and had only resigned from his position, not from the party. However, with his induction into the BJP on Saturday, he has now joined the list of Congress members who have switched to the BJP during the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections in 2024.
Twice Resigned as Delhi Congress Chief
This is not Lovely’s first switch from the Congress to the BJP. In less than a decade, he has resigned from his role as Delhi Congress chief twice to join the BJP.
In February 2015, Lovely resigned from his position as Delhi Congress chief after the party’s historically poor performance in the Delhi Assembly elections. The Congress, which had ruled Delhi for 15 years under Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, failed to win a single seat in the 70-member Delhi Assembly.
Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) secured a landslide victory, winning 67 seats, while the remaining three seats went to the BJP. Lovely, a four-time former Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), resigned and took moral responsibility for the electoral defeat, submitting his resignation to then Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Two years later, on May 11, 2017, Lovely joined the BJP, a week before the Delhi municipal elections. He accused the Congress party of bribery during ticket distribution for the municipal polls. The BJP won the 2017 Delhi municipal polls.
‘Ideological Misfit in BJP’
However, nine months later, on February 17, 2018, Lovely rejoined the Congress shortly after meeting with then party president Rahul Gandhi.
“Quitting Congress was not an easy decision… I found myself ideologically misaligned in the BJP and soon realized I should do all I could for my original party,” Lovely told reporters in Delhi after rejoining the Congress. Lovely was reinstated as Delhi Congress president in August 2023.
Four-Term Ex-MLA
Lovely was a key minister in the late Sheila Dikshit-led Delhi government. He won Delhi Assembly Elections four times since 1998, holding important portfolios such as education, tourism, urban development, and transport as a minister in the Congress government.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Lovely contested on a Congress ticket from the East Delhi constituency but lost to BJP candidate Gautam Gambhir.
