Uddhav should know that Opposition needs required numbers in House to get LoP post: Minister

As the Budget Session of the state legislature began on March 3, the Shiv Sena (UBT) staked claim to the Leader of Opposition (LoP) post in the assembly and nominated senior MLA Bhaskar Jadhav for the cabinet-level position. It submitted a letter regarding it to assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar

Maharashtra Minister Sanjay Shirsat on Thursday said that an opposition party needs to have the required numbers in the legislative assembly to get the post of leader of opposition, and being a former chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray should be aware of this.

According to news agency PTI, Shirsat, who oversees the Social Justice portfolio, said the state government reduced his department’s allocation by Rs 7,000 crore in the recently presented budget. He added that he has raised the issue with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

As the budget session of the state legislature began on March 3, the Shiv Sena (UBT) staked claim to the Leader of Opposition (LoP) post in the state assembly and nominated senior MLA Bhaskar Jadhav for the cabinet-level position. It submitted a letter regarding it to assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar.

As per PTI, Uddhav Thackeray had insisted that a decision on the issue be taken before the end of the budget session on March 26.

Shiv Sena (UBT) ally, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), has demanded that the post of Leader of Opposition (LoP) be rotated among the three Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents—NCP (SP), Congress, and Shiv Sena (UBT)—for 18 months each.

But no decision was taken on the LoP post during the session.

The Shiv Sena (UBT) has 20 MLAs in the lower house, followed by the Congress (16) and NCP (SP) (10). As per precedents, an opposition party needs 10 per cent of the total seats (which comes to 28) to stake claim to the LoP post in the 288-member assembly.

Shirsat stated about the opposition alliance's demands, "Uddhav Thackeray earlier held the position of state chief minister for two-and-a-half years. He should understand that when there are no required numbers, the leader of opposition cannot be appointed," reported PTI.

"If they are demanding something, then this is not the way to demand. If they want to fight and take the post of leader of opposition, they should be strong enough in terms of the number of MLAs for that," the minister added.

Talking about the reduction in the budgetary allocations of the social justice department held by him, Shirsat, who is a spokesperson of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, said, "The social justice ministry handled by me has faced a cut of Rs 7,000 crore in the recent budget. This kind of curtailment cannot be applied to the department by law. The funds are given as per law."

The minister said he had spoken to CM Fadnavis about the issue and also written a letter to him in this regard.

"This kind of curtailment in the budgetary allocations will bring some schemes to a halt or else we have to stop some schemes," he added, reported PTI.

(With PTI inputs)

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