Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Ravindra Nath Mahato on Friday recognized BJP MLA Babulal Marandi as Leader of Opposition in the JMM -led state assembly.
There is no opposition leader in the state, where the last assembly election was held in November 2024.
Dhanwar MLA and former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi was elected the leader of the BJP Legislature Party in a meeting held on Thursday, the party informed the Speaker through a letter.
Mahato said that he was requested to recognize the party’s state president Marandi as the Leader of the Opposition.
Mahato said in the assembly, “I recognize the BJP as the Leader of the Opposition in the House, the main opposition party and Babulal Marandi without any delay.”
During the meeting held on Thursday, party state president Marandi was unanimously elected the leader of the BJP Legislature Party.
The BJP Parliamentary Board on Wednesday announced two Union Supervisors – Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav and Laxman K Laxman of the party’s OBC Morcha for the election of BJP Legislature Party leader in the Jharkhand Assembly.
After the meeting, Yadav said that senior MLAs Naveen Jaiswal, Neera Yadav, Raj Sinha and Prakash Ram proposed the name of Marandi as the leader of the legislative party during the meeting and all unanimously approved it.
After this, the party’s executive president Ravindra Kumar Rai wrote a letter to the chairman and informed about the incident.
India has 56 MLAs in the 81 -member Jharkhand Legislative Assembly – 34 of JMM, 16 of Congress, four of RJD and two of CPI (ML) Liberation. BJP has 21 members, while AJSU party, JD (U), LJP (RV) and JLKM have one member each.