BHUBANESWAR: With BJP emerging as the principal opposition party in the Assembly by relegating Congress to the third position, the saffron party has come a long way to stake claim for the Leader of Opposition, a key constitutional post in Parliamentary democracy.
Having won 23 Assembly seats, BJP has the numerical strength to get the status of principal opposition and qualify to Leader of Opposition post. Now, speculations are rife on who will occupy the post which is considered to be the second most important position in the Assembly after the Chief Minister, the leader of the House.
As seniority and experience in legislative business were given weightage during selection of a leader for the post, the BJP Legislature Party has to make a choice between two former ministers - Sambalpur MLA Jayanarayan Mishra and Bhawanipatna MLA Pradipta Kumar Naik. The two leaders were ministers in the Cabinet of Naveen Patnaik when he was leading BJD-BJP coalition Government from 2000 to 2009.
Given the choice between the two, Naik is senior compared to Jayanarayan in electoral politics as he was elected to the Assembly in 1995 whereas the latter became an MLA in 2000. However, chances of Mishra getting the post are more as he was more vocal and articulate in Assembly debate and had the experience of leading the BJP Legislature Party in the House in 2013 when the then leader of the party KV Singhdeo was elected to head the party’s State unit.
Mishra was in news during and after the Bijepur by-election last year when he was arrested in connection with a firing incident in which a BJD worker died in Bargarh. Though two more senior leaders of the party - Mohan Majhi and Bishnu Sethi - have been elected to the 16th Assembly, they will not be in contention as Majhi is too young and Sethi is a second timer.
“It is the job of the legislators to elect their leader in the Assembly. Certainly, the approval of the BJP central Parliamentary board will be taken before deciding the leadership of the party in the House,” sources said. As all the senior leaders of the party are camping in New Delhi for the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi Government on May 30, the meeting of the BJP Legislature Party is likely to be held in the first week of June, the sources added.
The BJP had won highest number of 38 seats in 2000 when it shared power with BJD under the leadership of Naveen. The number came down to 32 in 2004 and it further plunged to single digit in 2009 when only six members were elected. The party had 10 members in the outgoing Assembly.