In a surprise move, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday appointed the party’s veteran Brahmin face and seven-time MLA Mata Prasad Pandey, 81, as the Leader of Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
Also, Akhilesh appointed Kanth MLA and minority community leader Kamal Akhtar as the party’s chief whip and RK Verma, a Kurmi face from Pratapgarh district, as the party’s deputy whip in the Assembly.
The development came a day before the start of the monsoon session of the state Assembly.
The LoP’s post had fallen vacant since Akhilesh had relinquished his Assembly membership after securing a win from the Kannauj constituency in the recently held Lok Sabha elections.
The Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in the state is likely to table supplementary demands for grants during the Assembly’s five-day monsoon session.
Pandey, the seven-time MLA from the Itwa constituency in Siddharthnagar district in eastern UP, remained the Assembly speaker twice during the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government from 2004 to 2007 and the Akhilesh-led government from 2012 to 2017.
Sources said even as a section of the party wanted Akhilesh’s uncle and party founder member Shivpal Singh Yadav to take over the charge, the responsibility was given to Pandey following lengthy discussions.
With the SP contesting the recent parliamentary elections on the issue of reservation and advocating the “PDA” (Pichhda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak), the appointment of Kamal Akhtar, a minority community leader from Moradabad district in western UP, as the party’s chief whip is being seen as an attempt to strike a balance.
Akhtar, who has also been a Rajya Sabha MP in the past, served as a cabinet minister in the Akhilesh-led SP government from 2012 to 2017. Verma, who joined the Samajwadi Party ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections, is presently MLA from the Raniganj seat in Pratapgarh. In the 2017 Assembly polls, he was elected as MLA from Pratapgarh on the ticket of the Anupriya Patel-led Apna Dal (Soneylal), a partner of the NDA at the Centre.
While a section of the party was not keen on giving responsibility to “outsiders”, all those present in the meeting unanimously agreed on the name of veteran Pandey. His appointment to the post also assumes significance as the party lost its then chief whip Manoj Kumar Pandey, a Brahmin leader MLA from the Raebareli, switched sides to the BJP before the Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking to mediapersons after attending the all party-meeting and business advisory committee meetings in the Assembly on Sunday, Pandey said, “This government has only given problems to the people of the state. Thus there is no dearth of issues that we can raise. There is the issue of law and order followed by unemployment, plights of students, and farmers etc. We will raise all these issues during the monsoon session.”
Calling Pandey a “prakash ka stambh” (pillar of light), Akhilesh said Pandey “has a long experience of understanding and making others follow healthy traditions in the Vidhan Sabha.”
Pandey’s experience will not only help the SP MLAs but also the Assembly speaker, Chief Minister, his ministers and MLAs of other parties, he added.
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