SP loses leader of opposition's post in UP Vidhan Parishad

The Samajwadi Party has lost the leader of opposition's post in the Vidhan Parishad.

The UP Vidhan Parishad secretariat has derecognised Samajwadi Party's Lal Bihari Yadav as the leader of opposition in the council, as the party's strength in the council has now fallen short of ten -- the minimum for the largest opposition party to get the post.

There will be no leader of opposition in the upper house.

Ten members of the council retired on Thursday, bringing down the strength of SP.

Principal secretary, UP legislative council, Rajesh Singh issued the notification about the derecognition of Lal Bihari Yadav as the leader of opposition in the council.

Yadav now continues as the leader of the SP group in the council. Lal Bihari Yadav became the leader of opposition in the UP legislative council on May 27 after his party's Sanjay Lathar's membership ended. Prior to Yadav, Lathar held the post.

Others whose tenure ended on Thursday include Congress' Deepak Singh, SP's Shatrudh Prakash, Jagjivan Prasad, Balram Yadav, Dr Kamlesh Kumar Pathak, Ranvijay Singh and Ram Sundar Das Nishad.

The Bahujan Samaj Party members whose tenure ended are Atar Singh Rawat, Dinesh Chandra, and Suresh Kumar Kashyap.

The Congress, for the first time, has no presence left in the Vidhan Parishad.

Meanwhile, the term of the newly in elected 13 MLCs, elected last month, has begun now.