Zee Media Bureau/Ritesh K Srivastava
New Delhi: Union Finance Minister and BJP politician Arun Jaitley has been appointed as the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, while Congress` veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad has been made the Leader of the Opposition in the Upper House, Vice President Hamid Ansari said on Monday.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi had on Sunday nominated Ghulam Nabi Azad as leader of party in the Rajya Sabha and named Anand Sharma as the deputy leader of the Upper House.
“The President of Congress Parliamentary Party Sonia Gandhi, exercising her authority below the Constitution of the Congress party in Parliament, has nominated Azad as Leader of Congress in Rajya Sabha and Anand Sharma as Deputy Leader,” Janardan Dwivedi announced yesterday.
Meanwhile, former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, who defeated Arun Jaitley in Lok Sabha elections, has been made the Deputy Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha while the young leader Jyotiraditya Scindia has been brought in as chief whip of the party.
The decision to appoint Scindia, one of the two party MPs from Madhya Pradesh, signals the party`s intent to accommodate the young articulate leadership in the House where both leader of the party Mallikarjun Kharge and deputy leader Singh are veterans.
Scindia is considered close to Rahul Gandhi and had been made the campaign committee chief of the party for assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh last year.
The other MP from Madhya Pradesh is former Union minister Kamal Nath. There were speculations earlier about Kamal Nath being made party`s Leader in Lok Sabha, a post which eventually went to Kharge, a Dalit leader from Karnataka which has sent the maximum number of 9 MPs for the party in this election.
The lone MP from Haryana Deepender Singh Hooda, son of chief minister Bhuipnder Singh Hooda, has been made one of the two whips, the other being KC Venugopal from Kerala.
