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Akhilesh appointed leader of Opposition in UP’s assembly
Akhilesh Yadav, who won from Karhal in Mainpuri in his maiden assembly election earlier this month, quit his Lok Sabha membership from Azamgarh constituency on Tuesday to focus on the state politics.
Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav was appointed the leader of opposition in the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly on Saturday, hours after he was unanimously elected as the leader of the SP legislature party.
“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 with effect from March 26,” the assembly secretariat said in a statement.
The appointment was finalised hours after the principal opposition party notified the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha secretariat about Yadav being unanimously elected as the leader of SP legislature party.
“Akhilesh Yadav has been unanimously elected as leader of SP legislature party,” Naresh Uttam Patel, party’s state president, told reporters after the meeting of SP’s newly elected legislators at the party headquarters.
Yadav, who won from Karhal in Mainpuri in his maiden assembly election earlier this month, quit his Lok Sabha membership from Azamgarh constituency on Tuesday to focus on the state politics. He will come across his main opponent and chief minister Yogi Adityanath in the state’s lower house for the first time.
Adityanath, who took the route of the legislative council during his previous tenure as chief minister from 2017, also won his first-ever assembly election.
In the 2019 general elections, the SP had won five of the 80 Uttar Pradesh seats. The party’s strength has come down to three after the resignations of Yadav and Azam Khan, who quit his membership of the Lok Sabha after winning the Rampur seat in the recent assembly elections.
The SP won 111 seats, a significant jump from 47 seats it bagged in 2017 assembly polls, while the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in the state with 255 seats.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), an ally of the SP, also held a meeting of its new MLAs on Saturday. All eight RLD legislators attended the meeting, chaired by party chief Jayant Chaudhary at the party headquarters.
“The new MLAs unanimously decided and authorised Chaudhary to select the RLD legislature party leader,” said Anil Dubey, the party’s national spokesperson.
