Short on numbers, the Congress on Saturday made it clear that it will not make a formal claim to the post of the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Congress has 52 members in the Lok Sabha, two short of the required number of 54 for it to be eligible to lay claim to the post of the leader of the Opposition that comes with the rank of a Cabinet minister.
At the same time, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said 52 members of the Congress in the Lok Sabha will not give a walkover to the Modi government.
“We are 52 MPs. I guarantee you that these 52 MPs will fight against BJP every single inch. We are enough to make BJP jump every day,” Rahul said in brief remarks at the meeting of the Congress Party in Parliament on Saturday.
“Every single one of you, you are going to enjoy yourself, you are going to shout a little more than usual. You are going to have to be a little more aggressive,” Rahul said.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala noted that according to rules, a party needs to have 10% of the 545 members, the total strength of the Lok Sabha, to qualify for the post of leader of the Opposition.
“We will not stake a claim for the post of leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha as we are two short of 54 members required for the status,” Surjewala said.
Even in the previous 16th Lok Sabha, the leader of the Congress party in the House, Mallikarjun Kharge, was not granted the leader of the Opposition status as the party had won only 44 seats in 2014.
Besides protocol issues, the presence of the leader of Opposition is a pre-requisite for selection committees for appointments to statutory bodies such as the Central Vigilance Commission and the Lok Pal. The leader of the Opposition is also part of the panel to select the CBI director.
In 1985, when the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had swept to power with a brute majority, the then Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar had not conferred the leader of the Opposition post to the Telugu Desam Party, which was the second largest party in the lower House after the Congress.