SHILLONG, April 8: Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Ronnie V Lyngdoh on Saturday said it would not be an easy call for the Assembly Speaker, Thomas A Sangma to decide whether there will be a Leader of Opposition (LO) or not.
The Speaker must exercise scrutiny before arriving at any decision, Lyngdoh said while speaking to The Shillong Times.
“Being a new Speaker, he will need to consult legal experts before arriving to any decision. We understand that it will not be an easy call for the Speaker since we do not have the required number and since we do not have an alliance,” Lyngdoh said.
He feels that a hasty decision may create a wrong precedence.
The CLP leader said that it is totally wrong to say that there is dilly-dallying in taking a decision on the matter.
“It is only a month. We can have doubts if no decision is arrived upon even after a year of the constitution of the new House,” Lyngdoh added.
Earlier, Law Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh had ascribed it to a fractured mandate which has led to the delay in taking a decision on the post of LO.
The Law minister had stated that this question will arise since the three parties in Opposition had not formed a common front.
According to her, this is not an unusual situation adding that several states have seen this.
The Rules & Procedures of the Assembly require that to qualify for recognition of LO, there should be a minimum of 10-member group.
It may be mentioned that till now the three opposition parties — Congress, TMC and VPP — despite having 14 members, have failed to form an alliance leading to the impasse.
Congress and TMC with five members each have sought the LO post and had even written to the Speaker in this connection.
