Former Congress Delhi chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, who had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in April 2017, rejoined the Congress on Saturday in the presence of senior party leaders like Ajay Maken and PC Chacko.

Lovely had quit the party amid dissatisfaction among a section of the Delhi Congress with the way Maken distributed tickets for the civic body elections. The “dissatisfied” leaders had sought Maken’s resignation, and even former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had criticised him, saying stalwarts such as Lovely had left the party because of him.

On his return, Lovely said that the decision to quit the Congress had been a painful one, and that ideologically he was “a misfit” in the BJP. The Congress leader said that 2017’s decision was a weak moment for him, The Indian Express reported. “But then after, I had a chat with Ajay Maken and sorted out the differences.”

Dikshit too welcomed Lovely’s return to the Congress fold. “I am happy that he has returned,” Dikshit said. “In the end, he realised that one’s own house is the best.”

Lovely was an important part of the Sheila Dikshit government, and held important portfolios such as education, tourism, urban development and transport. He was elected to the Delhi Assembly from the Gandhi Nagar seat for the first time in 1998, and has not lost a single election since then. He did not contest the 2015 elections.