Indian National Lok Dal secretary general Abhay Chautala has lost the Leader of Opposition (LoP) post in the Haryana Assembly.
The State Assembly Speaker Kanwar Pal Gujjar on Tuesday removed Abhay Singh Chautala from the position of LoP
The move comes three days after Chautala had announced that he had sent his resignation to the Speaker and urged him to accept it after the disqualification of five party MLAs, who are involved in anti-party activities.
Chautala, an MLA from Ellenabad in his resignation letter to the Speaker had sought the disqualification of five MLAs including Ranbir Gangwa who had joined the BJP and INLD MLAs- Naina Chautala (Dabwali), Rajdeep Phogat (Dadri), Prithi Singh Namberdar (Narwana) and Anoop Dhanak (Uklana) who had joined Dushyant Chautala’s Janata Jananayak Party (JJP).
Another INLD MLA, Kehar Singh Rawat had joined the BJP a day before.
Speaker Kanwar Pal Gujjar, while talking to the mediapersons on Tuesday said that Abhay Chautala has been removed from the post of LoP in Haryana Assembly as the INLD is no longer the second largest party in the State Assembly.
All facilities given to Abhay Chautala as LoP stands withdrawn from today onwards, he said.
A Leader of Opposition in the Assembly enjoys all facilities that are given to a Cabinet Minister.
Gujjar also confirmed that he has accepted the resignations of INLD MLAs Ranbir Singh Gangwa and Kehar Singh Rawat who had recently joined the BJP.
Ranbir Gangwa had submitted his resignation on March 20 while Kehar Singh had submitted it on March 24, he said.
Although it remains to be seen if the four INLD MLAs will be disqualified, Abhay Chautala was removed from the position due to INLD’s numbers reducing from 19 to 15 in the State Assembly.
In the 90-member State Assembly, while the ruling BJP has 48 MLAs after the recent Jind bypoll win, Congress has 17members and INLD now has 15 members including those four MLAs who have joined JJP. One each member belongs to the SAD and BSP, five are independents while one seat fell vacant after demise of INLD MLA Jaswinder Singh Sandhu. Two INLD MLAs have resigned from the State Assembly after joining the BJP.
The new LoP will now be from Congress party and CLP leader Kiran Choudhry is likely to be appointed on this post.
The Speaker said, “We will write to Congress state chief and whosoever they nominate for the post, we will appoint him/her as LoP.”
“Regarding the four INLD MLAs who have joined the JJP, Gujjar said that the decision would be taken after following the laid down procedure. As per the procedure, notices will be issued to them and personal hearing will be conducted to decide on their membership. Till now, these four MLAs have not submitted anything in written about leaving the INLD, he said.
The INLD won 19 seats in 2014 assembly elections, but the party’s strength is just 11 now. On the other hand, the Congress won 15 seats in 2014, but its strength in the Assembly had increased to 17 after Kuldeep Bishnoi merged his HJC with the party and he as well as his wife Renuka Bishnoi, MLA from Hansi, joined the party.