Lucknow, Sep 23 Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday appointed Mohammad Jasmir Ansari as the new Leader of the Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, replacing Lal Bihari Yadav.
Yadav formally informed the Legislative Council chairman by letter of the change and asked him to name Ansari, the SP’s deputy leader in the Legislative Council, as the Leader of the Opposition.
The change comes ahead of the upcoming Legislative Council elections.
Lal Bihari Yadav has served as Leader of Opposition since July 2024. He resigned on Wednesday after the announcement of the Council elections, saying he would contest from the Varanasi Teachers’ constituency.
The SP has 10 members in the 100-member Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad), the upper House of UP’s bicameral state legislature.
Ansari, a native of Laharpur in Sitapur district, was born on January 12, 1968. He represented the Laharpur Assembly constituency twice between 2007 and 2017 as a Bahujan Samaj Party MLA. He later joined the Congress and subsequently moved to the Samajwadi Party after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Ansari was elected to the Legislative Council in 2022 by MLAs and was subsequently made the SP’s deputy leader in the House. He has also served as chairman of the Council’s Assurances Committee.
(PTI News)
