New Delhi: Congress party may have to take a legal help if its Lok Sabha leader Maliikarjun Kharge not made the Leader of Opposition. Party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmad said, “The law guarantees it,” to the party and the Speaker did not have discretion on who can be Leader of the Opposition.
Congress party had also denied the reports that party President Sonia Gandhi had written to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to stake claim to the post.
Ahmad had denied about the letter and said, “Why should Congress president write, staking a claim to the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha when the law guarantees it to Congress, which is the largest opposition party in the House?”
The Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977, amended in 2002, defines the Leader of Opposition as, “the Leader in that House of the party in Opposition to the government having the greatest numerical strength and recognised as such by the Chairman of the Council of States or the Speaker of the House of the People, as the case may be.”
Bureau Report
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