'Not joining any party,' says Arvinder Singh Lovely after quitting as Delhi Cong chief

New Delhi: Arvinder Singh Lovely on Sunday said he has only resigned as chief of the Congress' Delhi unit and is not joining any other political party.

His clarification came after Congress ex-MLA Asif Mohammad Khan claimed that the BJP would field Lovely from the East Delhi constituency, replacing Harsh Malhotra.

"I have only resigned as Delhi Congress chief and I am not joining any political party," he said at a press conference at his residence.

Lovely said his resignation reflected the pain of Congress workers saddened by the fact that the "ideals they had been fighting for during the last seven to eight years" were being compromised.

"We are fighting the elections together but never did the Congress workers say that we are giving a clean chit to them or giving them credit for building schools and hospitals, which is far from the reality," Lovely said, referring to the party's tie-up with the AAP in Delhi for the Lok Sabha polls.

In a setback to the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Lovely resigned as the party's Delhi unit chief, citing the alliance with the AAP as one of the reasons.

He said the Congress' Delhi unit was against the alliance but the party high command went ahead with it.

"The Delhi Congress unit was against an alliance with a party which was formed on the sole basis of levelling false, fabricated and mala fide corruption charges against the Congress party ... half of the cabinet ministers (of the party) are presently in jail on corruption charges," he said in his resignation letter sent to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday.

"Despite that, the party (Congress) made a decision to ally with the AAP in Delhi. We respected the party's final decision ... I even went to the extent of visiting Mr (Arvind) Kejriwal's residence on the night of his arrest along with Mr Subash Chopra and Mr Sandeep Dikshit, despite the same being against my position on the matter," he said.