Bhupinder elected leader of Opposition

The Pioneer, May 25, 2009
PNS | Bhubaneswar

Senior Congress leader and Narla MLA Bhupinder Singh was elected as Leader of Opposition on Sunday.

In order to elect a leader of Opposition unanimously, AICC general secretary and in-charge of Orissa Ghulam Nabi Azad rushed to Bhubaneswar and a Congress Legislature Party meeting was held at Congress Bhawan. PCC president KP Singh Deo was present in the meeting. Out of 27 elected MLAs, 25 attended.

Kotpad MLA Basudev Majhi proposed the name of Singh.

Later, he was unanimously elected as the Leader of Opposition. Mohana MLA Chakradhar Paika was elected as deputy leader of Opposition. While Sataybadi MLA Prasad Harichandan has been appointed as the Opposition Chief Whip, Jharsuguda MLA Anup Sai has been appointed as secretary of the party in Orissa Legislative Assembly.

During his visit, Azad admitted that a weak organisational structure led to the defeat of the party. “The PCC organisation should have been restructured six months prior to the elections,” he said, indicating that the delay in appointment of the PCC president led to the defeat of the party.

“The BJD has taken the mileage from central Government sponsored programmes. The Congress leaders were not able to convince people that all programmes are Congress Government programmes,” Azad said.

On being asked about the BJD’s support for the UPA Government, he said that the UPA has enough numbers without the BJD.