Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Jitendra Awhad has been appointed as the new Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly after incumbent Ajit Pawar quit the NCP and joined the Eknath Shinde government this morning. NCP president Sharad Pawar announced the development in Pune on Sunday.
Awhad said NCP state unit president Jayant Patil appointed him as the party's chief whip and LoP. In an apparent reference to the defection, Awadh said that all MLAs have to follow his whip. "I do not find any other reason behind these MLAs switching sides apart from threats of probes by the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation. These leaders should have remembered that the party that they have deserted had made them ministers in the last 25 years," he said.
Earlier during the day, Ajit Pawar was appointed as the deputy chief minister along with BJP's Devendra Fadnavis. He took oath as deputy CM for the third time in the last three years. With Pawar's appointment, Maharashtra for the first time has two deputy chief ministers ~ Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis.