Gandhinagar: After a long delay, the main opposition Congress party in Gujarat has got its legislative group leader in the State assembly. Anklav legislator and former President of the Gujarat unit of Congress party, Amit Chavda has been declared as the new leader of the legislator group of the Congress party in the State assembly. Danilimda legislator Shailesh Parmar has been declared as his Deputy.

Congress has just 17 seats in the 182-seat Gujarat assembly. As per the rule, the post of the leader of the opposition can be achieved only if the opposition party has at least 10 percent of seats in the State assembly. The status of leader of the opposition avails a bungalow in the ministerial enclave and a rank equal to the Cabinet minister. However, it is not clear at this point in time whether Chavda will get the post of Leader of Opposition, because, for that, Congress needs to have 18 seats in the 182-seat assembly. Chavda has been winning Anklav seat consistently. He is from the younger lot of MLAs. He has been the President of the party’s State unit. All these factors went in favor of his selection.

After the State assembly elections last month, the Congress party had in a meeting decided that the party’s national chief Kharge’s decision on the legislator group leader of the party shall be final. As always, the national leadership of the Congress party delayed the decision. Recently the secretariat of the State assembly had in a letter reminded Gujarat Congress chief Jagdish Thakor that the party needs to submit the name of its legislator party chief within 30 days of the first session of the State Assembly after the election.