Congress leader Arvinder Singh Lovely today resigned as the chief of the party’s Delhi unit over its alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Arvinder Singh Lovely said that several AAP ministers have been jailed over corruption charges, still the Congress formed an alliance with Arvind Kejriwal’s party for the Lok Sabha elections amid opposition by party workers.

Mr Lovely – in a letter to Congress Chief Mallikarjun Kharge – said that since he cannot protect the interests of the Delhi Congress workers, he sees no reason to continue as the chief of city’s party unit.

“The Delhi Congress Unit was against an alliance with a party (AAP) which was formed on the sole basis of leveling false, fabricated and malafide corruption charges against the Congress. Despite that, the party made a decision to ally with the AAP in Delhi,” he said.

He said the party gave Lok Sabha tickets to candidates who were “total strangers” to the Delhi Congress unit, referring to Udit Raj’s candidature in North-west Delhi and Kanhaiya Kumar in Northeast Delhi. 

The party high command’s decision to field Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj for the polls has caused friction among the party leaders in Delhi, sources said.

Party leaders, sources said, are not ready to compromise since the AICC and high command ignored their views and concerns. “Several Delhi leaders are also planning to join the BJP or form a new party if their issues are not resolved, sources told NDTV. 

Hinting at internal rift, Mr Lovely also alleged that several decisions taken by him as the Delhi Congress Chief were vetoed by the AICC General Secretary (Delhi In-charge).

“Since my appointment as DPCC President, the AICC General Secretary (Delhi In-charge) has not allowed me to make any senior appointments in the DPCC,” he said.

Arvinder Singh Lovely was appointed the Delhi Congress President in August last year.

The Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress had agreed to a 4:3 seat-sharing formula for Delhi earlier this year to put up a joint fight in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

In Delhi, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party is contesting four out of the seven seats – West Delhi, South Delhi, East Delhi, and New Delhi. The remaining three – North East Delhi, North West Delhi, and Chandni Chowk – are with the grand old party.

Seat-sharing has been one of the major headaches for the INDIA bloc with the aspirations of the regional parties dragging the negotiations. The Congress’s recent electoral setbacks in three heartland states have emboldened the regional powers to seek a bigger share of seats.

The INDIA bloc, which was set up last year to take on the BJP, has already lost two key members – Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United and Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtra Lok Dal. Both have aligned with the BJP.

Campuses of several US Universities have been witnessing massive protests with the students seeking a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas. Police have arrested over 550 protesters and some universities are witnessing violent clashes between cops and the activists.

Law enforcement officials at the behest of college administrators have deployed tasers and tear gas against students protesters at Atlanta’s Emory University, even though the protests have been largely peaceful, say activists and media personnel present at the spot.

Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies, at the University said that the scene reminded him of the civil war in Guatemala as a teenager.

“Police immediately began to force people to move. I felt like I was in a war zone, with all the police and their weapons, the rubber bullets. We were pushed away,” Mr Keme told the Guardian describing what happened as soon as cops entered the Emory campus.

“Police took the student next to me, pushed an older lady nearby and then pushed me.”

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. They want universities to cut their investments in everything tied to Israel and weapons that fuel the war in Gaza. That means funds run by BlackRock, Google as well as Amazon’s cloud service, Lockheed Martin and even Airbnb.

Video circulated widely on social media shows two women who identified themselves as professors being detained, with one of them slammed to the ground by one officer as a second officer then pushes her chest and face onto a concrete sidewalk.

FULL VIDEO OF ELDERLY AMERICAN ECONOMICS PROFESSOR CAROLINE FOHLIN BEING ASSAULTED BY POLICE

She is an over 65 year old American woman.

Americans attacked for Israel.

What if this was your mother/grandmother? pic.twitter.com/ne7uDsPGIX

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) April 26, 2024

🚨#BREAKING: Chaos has Unleashed at Emory University as Georgia Police Deploy Tasers, Rubber Bullets, and Tear Gas Against Protesters⁰⁰📌#Atlanta | #Georgia ⁰
Moments ago at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, hundreds of students, pro-Palestine protesters, and other… pic.twitter.com/LEwwGuKBEn

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 25, 2024

Atlanta police and Georgia troopers are leading a joint operation within the campus to dismantle the tents and camps the activists have set up at the school’s quadrangle. Within minutes of the authorities entering the campus, 28 people, 20 of whom were “Emory community members”, had been arrested, the institute said in a statement.

The school president said that the videos of police clashing with the students “are shocking” and that he is “horrified horrified that members of our community had to experience and witness such interactions.”

The university’s response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used.

Cops initially registered a case under ‘lesser’ sections such as wrongful confinement and voluntarily causing hurt, her family alleged. However, after the survivor’s statement was recorded before a magistrate under Sec 164 CrPC, sections of rape along with Pocso Act were added to FIR. Refuting the family’s allegations, SSP (Kheri) Ganesh Saha told TOI, “We’d registered an FIR on basis of a complaint by her family. A video statement of the girl was recorded in which she didn’t level such grave allegations.”