Senior Congress leader and prominent face of the State unit, Arvinder Singh Lovely has been appointed as the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president to rejuvenate party workers ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. He had held the post of DPCC chief earlier as well between 2013 and 2015. His appointment comes at a time when in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have come together under the INDIA bloc. However, there has been no decision yet on what the alliance will entail when it comes to seat-sharing in Delhi and Punjab where the AAP Government is in power. Lovely, a four-term MLA from the Gandhi Nagar constituency has also been the Urban Development and Education Minister between 2003 and 2013 during the Sheila Dikshit government. He had joined the BJP in 2017. However, he had returned to the Congress within months. In a press release the Congress appreciated the outgoing president Anil Chaudhary. Chaudhary’s tenure of three years ended in March this year.

General secretary of the All India Congress Committee KC Venugopal in a release on Thursday announced Lovely’s appointment. “The Congress president has appointed Arvinder Singh Lovely as president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee with immediate effect,” the release read. It added that the party appreciated the contribution of outgoing president Anil Chaudhary. As a Delhi Congress president, Lovely will have to work hard to revive and rejuvenate party workers as the Congress has not won a single Lok Sabha seat or an MLA seat since the 2013 Assembly election.  Lovely said the party will focus on fixing the organisational structure and also reach out to the people of Delhi. Lovely, a former minister in the Sheila Dikshit government, was appointed the Delhi Congress chief earlier on Thursday, replacing Anil Chaudhary.” My role now is to strengthen the whole party organisation in Delhi. People have started looking up to Rahul Gandhi and the Congress,” Lovely said.

“We will take each and every leader, including the previous presidents, along and work unitedly to revive the party. We will focus on what’s missing and also reach out to the people of Delhi,” he said.