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Akhilesh appointed leader of opposition in UP assembly
Akhilesh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party (SP), was appointed leader of the opposition in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav was on Saturday appointed leader of opposition in Uttar Pradesh assembly.
The UP Vidhan Sabha secretariat, in a statement, said: “This is publicly published that Akhilesh Yadav, member of UP legislative assembly and leader of Samajwadi Party legislature party, is appointed as the leader of opposition in UP legislative assembly under Section 2 (h) of Uttar Pradesh State Legislature (Members Emoluments and Pension) Act, 1980 w.e.f 26 March, 2022.”
The appointment was finalised soon after the SP notified the UP Vidhan Sabha secretariat that Akhilesh Yadav was unanimously elected leader of Samajwadi Party legislature party.
Earlier in the day, the SP held the first meeting of newly-elected MLAs of the party at its headquarters here. “Akhilesh has been unanimously elected as leader of SP legislative party,” Naresh Uttam Patel, party’s state president, said after the meeting.
Akhilesh had resigned on Tuesday from the Lok Sabha by handing over his resignation to Speaker of the Lower House Om Birla. He was representing Azamgarh in the Lok Sabha.
The SP chief resigned from Lok Sabha after winning the Karhal assembly seat in the recently-held Uttar Pradesh elections.
The SP had won five Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general elections. The party’s strength has reduced to three after the resignations of Akhilesh and SP’s Azam Khan from the Lok Sabha.
In the recently-held UP polls, SP bagged 111 seats -- a big increase from its 47 seats in 2017. The BJP returned to power in the state with over 250 seats.
At the SP meeting on Saturday, only SP MLAs were invited and none of the MLAs of allied parties, or those who belong to ally parties but contested on SP ticket, were invited, said Naresh Uttam Patel. There will be another meeting on March 28 where even those MLAs will be invited, he said.
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Ally RLD, too, holds MLAs’ meet
Samajwadi Party ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), too, held a meeting of its newly-elected MLAs at its party office in Lucknow.
All eight RLD MLAs attended the meeting, chaired the party chief Jayant Chaudhary. They discussed the polls results and the party’s role in the UP assembly.
“The new MLAs unanimously decided and authorised Chaudhary to select the RLD legislature party leader,” said Anil Dubey, the party’s national spokesperson.
After the meeting, Jayant, along with the eight MLAs and other party leaders, met Akhilesh, who greeted the RLD MLAs over their victories while the RLD MLAs and Jayant greeted Akhilesh on he becoming the leader of Opposition in the assembly.
Later, Jayant and his party MLAs and leaders went on an outing in Lucknow also had ‘chaat’ and ‘kulfi’. He posted a picture on tweeter and wrote in Hindi, which meant: “Okay, enough of ‘Garmi talks’, chilled over ‘kulfi’ in Lucknow with colleagues.”
‘Garmi’ was one of the UP polls attack and counter-attack points between the ruling BJP and the opposition leaders after chief minister Yogi Adityanath began using the word to warn the alleged ‘waywards’.
