Vijay Wadettiwar becomes the new LoP in Maharashtra assembly

This is the second time Wadettiwar will get this responsibility. From June 2019 till the assembly elections held the same year, Wadettiwar was the leader of the opposition as the then-opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil resigned from his position and joined the ruling BJP

Mumbai: After struggling for weeks, Congress decided on Tuesday to appoint Vijay Wadettiwar as the new opposition leader of Maharashtra, and also requested speaker Rahul Narvekar to declare his name in the state assembly, resuming on Wednesday after a short break.

The post of leader of the opposition was vacant for a month after Ajit Pawar split Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and joined the coalition government of Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde and Bharatiya Janata Party) on July 2. Ajit was also holding the opposition leader position till that time. (HT Photo)

This is the second time Wadettiwar will get this responsibility. From June 2019 till the assembly elections held the same year, Wadettiwar was the leader of the opposition as the then-opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil resigned from his position and joined the ruling BJP.

“The party leadership has decided to give the responsibility to Vijay Wadettiwar. He is a senior leader from Vidarbha region and also represents the OBC community,” Balasaheb Thorat, Congress legislative party leader, said after meeting the speaker on Tuesday. “We have submitted the speaker to declare Wadettiwar’s name tomorrow (Wednesday) itself.”

Confirming the request, Narvekar said he would decide after studying the concerned provisions.

The post of leader of the opposition was vacant for a month after Ajit Pawar split Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and joined the coalition government of Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde and Bharatiya Janata Party) on July 2. Ajit was also holding the opposition leader position till that time.

Soon after the split, NCP declared Jitendra Awhad as the opposition leader but chose not to claim the position officially as Congress became the biggest opposition party on the floor of the assembly following the split in the NCP. It has 45 MLAs at present. NCP had 53 MLAs, however, most of them have sworn allegiance to Ajit and can be seen divided between treasury and ruling benches in the state assembly.

Wadettiwar is from the Chandrapur district of the Vidarbha region and is a two-term MLA from the Bramhapuri assembly constituency. Before this, he was a two-term MLA from Chimur assembly constituency. He started his political career as a National Student Union of India (NSUI) activist, later joined Shiv Sena and was made a member of the Maharashtra legislative council (MLC). In 2005, he left the party, along with former chief minister Narayan Rane and joined Congress.