Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) today named party president Naveen Patnaik as the Leader of Opposition in the Odisha Assembly.
The BJD legislature party unanimously selected senior leader and Rairakhol MLA Prasanna Acharya as the Deputy Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly.
Similarly, Binjharpur MLA Pramila Mallick has become the Opposition chief whip while Aul MLA Pratap Keshari Deb has been named as the deputy chief whip in the Assembly.
“We just had a meeting of the BJD MLAs who have been elected to the recent elections. I congratulated and thanked them. They have elected me as the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Legislature Party”, Patnaik told reporters after the meeting.
The BJD convened the meeting of its 51 newly elected MLAs and some senior leaders at the party headquarters ‘Sankha Bhawan’ in Bhubaneswar. The meeting was chaired by supremo Naveen Patnaik.
The BJD managed to win 51 seats coming down to the second spot in the recently- concluded Assembly election in Odisha.
The BJP formed the government for the first time with 78 members in the 147-member Assembly. Congress secured the third spot with only 14 seats.
