Congress can't claim Leader of Opposition post, AG Mukul Rohatgi tells Speaker

NEW DELHI: Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi has informed the Speaker’s office that Congress cannot be recognised as the main Opposition party and hence its leader in the Lok Sabha cannot be bestowed with the Leader of Opposition title. The AG’s views concur with the stand the ruling side has taken on the matter. The AG cited a rule since 1966, which mandated that a party could claim the post only if it had a minimum of 10% strength of the Lok Sabha.

Consequently, there was no Leader of Opposition in the House till 1969, when the status was first granted to the leader of the largest opposition party. Congress, the largest Opposition party in this Lok Sabha, has only 44 seats, whereas the requisite strength by this precedence is 55 seats.

Sources said that AG opined, “Congress does not have the numerical majority to stake claim for the status of Leader of the Opposition.”

Rules regarding this had not been validated by any statutory law, the AG said in his opinion to the Speaker.

“Under existing parliamentary rules, the party seeking status of the Leader of Opposition must secure at least 1/10 of the total number of seats in the Lok Sabha, which works out to 55 seats. As the Congress does not have the requisite strength, it cannot claim stake for the LOP post,” the AG said in his opinion.

Congress has been insisting that the situation has changed as the LOP is required to be on the panel that selects CVC, CIC, CBI chief etc, and, hence, precedence should be overlooked to grant its leader the post.

Reacting to the development, Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmed told PTI, “Attorney General represents the government’s opinion. Government has nothing to do

with it. It is the domain of the Speaker. We will react after the ruling of the Speaker.” When asked what were Congress’ expectations from the Speaker, he said, “we hope that justice will be done to us as there is a clear-cut law about Leader of Opposition, which was made in 1977 and amended in 2003, which clearly states that the party with the largest number of members on the Opposition side should get the LOP.”

BJP said Congress may have to be content without the LOP post as it will be difficult for the Speaker to give it to the party after she sought an opinion from the AG on the issue.