Arvinder Singh Lovely to withdraw candidature from Delhi polls

The Congress party on Sunday announced that the party's Delhi unit chief Arvinder Singh Lovely has withdrawn his candidature from the upcoming assembly elections in the national capital, adding that he will look after the organisation of the polls.

"Arvinder Singh Lovely has withdrawn from the elections and will look after the organisation of the elections in Delhi. In his place, we are finalising a contestant and we will be finalising a name by tomorrow," Congress leader PC Chacko told the media.

"The dearth of leadership at the Pradesh Congress Committee to organise these polls has resulted in our requesting him to not contest this election. It was a party decision and was taken in order to organise the party at the grassroot level," he added.

Congress leader Ajay Maken also denied that Lovely had resigned because the latter felt upset at the former being made the face of the Congress campaign in the capital.

"The people who feel that Lovely ji has resigned because of that reason perhaps do not remember that Lovely ji, Haroon Yusuf and I are a team that dates back to more than 10 years," he stated.

Lovely was to contest the upcoming polls from the Gandhi Nagar constituency.

The elections for the 70-member Delhi Assembly will be held in a single phase on February 7, with the counting of votes set to take place on February 10.