YSRCP’S Jagan Mohan Reddy Seeks Status Of 'Leader Of Opposition', Writes To Speaker (image-instagram/ysjagan)

YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, YSRCP Congress Party president and former Andhra Pradesh Chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy wrote a letter to Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker Ch. Ayyanna Patrudu to recognise him as the Leader of Opposition in the House.

In the letter he mentioned that YSRCP is the sole party in opposition to the ruling coalition comprising TDP-JSP-BJP. He added that there were discussions in the public domain that the YSRCP would not be entitled to have the Leader of Opposition as the party doesn’t have 10% members of the total strength of the House.

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Jagan cited the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly notified under Article 208 of the Constitution, that there is no mandatory percentage of seats for a leader of a party to be recognised as the Leader of Opposition. Nor there has been any convention on the insistence of the 10% strength on the floor of the House of the opposition parties, he added.

He also highlighted several instances including the example of P Upendra of TDP being granted the position of LoP in the Lok Sabha in the year 1984 though the party had only secured 30 out of a total of 543 seats.

The LoP, with the associated rights of addressing the matters of grave public concern, imparts the necessary bi-partisanship to the proceedings of the House and the legitimacy of ensuring participation of divergent and opposing views on the policies of the government, he said.

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Jagan also drew the attention of the Speaker that during administering oaths to the elected members of the Legislative Assembly, the customary tradition of calling the Leader of the Opposition after the Leader of the House was not followed. He said that this gave an impression that there is already a decision taken not to grant the status of Leader of Opposition to him.

The YSRCP had secured a vote share of 40 percent in the recently concluded elections.