Kanhaiya Kumar faces ‘outsider’ protest as Delhi Congress chief quits

Delhi Congress workers stood outside Kanhaiya Kumar's newly inaugurated office, holding black posters with "need local candidate not outsider" written on them.
The Delhi Congress workers protested against Kanhaiya Kumar, the party's candidate from the North East Delhi seat, after state Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely resigned on Sunday.

The party workers stood outside Kanhaiya Kumar's newly inaugurated office, holding black posters with "need local candidate not outsider" written on them.
In his resignation letter, Arvinder Singh Lovely accused Kanhaiya Kumar of praising the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its chief Arvind Kejriwal.   

"The candidate from North East Delhi has also been giving media bytes falsely praising the Delhi CM, in direct contravention of the party line and local party workers' beliefs," Lovely said. 

 The Congress and AAP are jointly contesting the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi as part of the INDIA bloc.

Arvinder Singh Lovely said the announcement of the candidature of Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj, who is contesting from the North West Delhi seat, was not taken well by Congress leaders and workers, who consider them as "outsiders".

Kanhaiya Kumar, a former president of the JNU Students' Union who joined the Congress in 2021, contested from Bihar's Begusarai in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on a Communist Party of India (CPI) ticket.

The BJP also quipped at the Congress over Lovely's resignation. Party spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, "When workers of the Congress party were out on the streets of Delhi protesting against why tickets were given to people who had nothing to do with Delhi, like Kanhaiya Kumar, who has abused the armed forces and called the Naxalites as martyrs."  

"The AAP had completely obliterated the existence of Congress in Delhi, saying they would put Sheila Dixit and Sonia Gandhi in jail. The Congress had complained about how the AAP is involved in the liquor scam. But merely for political reasons, they have come together, that does not mean the voters will come together, BJP spokesman Shehzad Poonawala said. 

"... Today the Congress is unable to retain its leaders because its leaders are showing the mirror to Congress for its hypocrisy". 

In his resignation letter, Arvinder Singh Lovely also accused Deepak Babaria, the Congress's general secretary in-charge for Delhi, of "interference".

Meanwhile, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge instructed party General Secretary KC Venugopal to talk to Arvinder Singh Lovely and find a way to resolve the Delhi Congress crisis, sources told India Today TV.