Vijay Kumar Sinha, who resigned as Speaker, to be appointed as Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly | Patna News – Times of India

PATNA: Senior BJP leader and four-time MLA from Lakhisarai seat Vijay Kumar Sinha, who stepped down as Speaker of Bihar assembly, was on Wednesday selected as the party’s legislators’ party leader in the house. Being the BJP legislators’ party leader, Sinha will soon be appointed as the Leader of Opposition in the Bihar assembly as the saffron party is the only outfit in the Opposition in the state.
In a communication sent to the Vidhan Sabha secretariat, state BJP president and Bettiah MP Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal requested that Sinha be accorded the status of the Leader of the Opposition (LoP). Earlier, the Leader of the Opposition was RJD’s Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who is now the Deputy CM in the new government led by Nitish Kumar.

Before being elevated as the Speaker in 2020, Sinha also served as cabinet minister in the previous NDA government from 2017 to 2020.
Jaiswal further informed that former minister Samrat Chaudhary, son of veteran Kushwaha leader Shakuni Choudhary, has been chosen as the BJP’s leader in the state legislative council.
Earlier during the pre-lunch session in the assembly, Sinha announced his resignation on the floor of the House after an emotionally charged speech in which he expressed anguish over the no-confidence notice moved against him by over 55 MLAs of the ruling Grand Alliance. Sinha left the house after adjourning its proceedings till 2pm.

After Sinha left the assembly, deputy speaker Maheshwar Hazari occupied the speaker’s chamber and presided over the house proceedings in the post-lunch session when CM Nitish Kumar won the trust vote by 160-0 amidst walkout by the BJP members.
The two-day special session of the assembly, beginning from August 24 which was mainly convened for taking up the CM Nitish Kumar’s motion of confidence, was on Wednesday extended till Friday to facilitate the election of new speaker.
Deputy speaker Hazari announced that the nomination for the new speaker can be filed on Thursday while the election of speaker would be held on Friday.

After resigning as the speaker, Sinha walked down to the BJP office, more than one kilometre away, where he while addressing the party leaders, said he felt like returning to his mother’s lap. “My tenure lasted for 20 months during which I functioned as per the rules and in accordance with the values instilled in me by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Now a new chapter begins from today,” Sinha said.
On Tuesday, Sinha refused to quit as the speaker despite his party BJP losing the majority in the assembly after CM Nitish Kumar, two week ago, dumped the BJP-led NDA and joined hands with the RJD.