Congress MLA Vijay Wadettiwar appointed as Maharashtra’s new LoP

Mumbai: Senior Congress leader and MLA Vijay Wadettiwar was appointed as the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra legislative assembly on Thursday.

The post of Leader of the Opposition was vacant for more than a month after senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar and eight MLAs of the party joined the Eknath Shinde government on July 2. Ajit Pawar held the position till he resigned from it on June 30.

Wadettiwar was elected as the Leader of the Opposition by Congress earlier this week.

Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar officially announced his name on the post.

After Wadettiwar was appointed to the post, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis, Ajit Pawar and the opposition leaders escorted the Congress leader to the seat of the leader of opposition.

Before taking him to the chair, Ajit Pawar also took him to the treasury benches amid laughter from both sides.

Wadettiwar, who represents the Bramhapuri assembly constituency in Chandrapur district of Vidarbha region, was the leader of the opposition for four months in the past when Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, who held the post then, resigned to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In his speech, Chief Minister Shinde took a dig at Congress over the delay in naming the LoP.

With inputs from PTI