With only four days left for the start of the Assembly’s all-important budget session, the fractured opposition still has no face to lead it in the house.
The session is set to begin on March 20 and will present the first budget of the new government. The opposition is currently split three ways, with the Congress and Trinamool Congress having five seats each and the Voice of the People Party four.
In a house of 60 legislators, the official leader of the opposition should be from a party with a strength of at least 10. However, none qualifies. Up to now, the three parties have also shown themselves unable or unwilling to come together and form an alliance in order for a formal opposition to be recognised by the Speaker.
While the VPP is unwilling to make cause with old-school parties that it has positioned itself to be diametrically opposed to, the clash of egos within the Congress and TMC could prevent an agreement, which would hand the government a huge boon.
Speaking to Highland Post, Congress Legislative Party leader and Mylliem MLA Ronnie V Lyngdoh, who was in Delhi today, said there has been no agreement on the leader of the opposition.
“Till now we did not have any agreement on the LO matter and, since none of us have one-sixth of the numbers, this will lie entirely with the Speaker,” he said.
The Congress argument is that since it is a national party, one of its members should be leader of the opposition. The TMC, however, is also presenting itself as a national party.
