Ajay Singh, a close confidant of senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, was today appointed as Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly for the second time.
The appointment comes two days after party's central observer Ajay Maken chaired the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting here.
The post was lying vacant since last four months, after the death of Satyadev Katare.
"The party's central leadership picked up Ajay Singhji as the leader of opposition and the state unit has been informed about it," state party chief Arun Yadav confirmed to PTI today.
Ajay, son of former Union Minister Arjun Singh, had earlier worked in the similar capacity from 2010 to 2013 and during his stint the Congress had then brought a no-confidence motion against the BJP government led Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan which was defeated.
After December 2013 Assembly polls, Ajay, a legislator from Churhat constituency of Madhya Pradesh again sought to retain his post as leader of opposition but was unsuccessful.
Two days ago, the Congress legislature party had passed an unanimous resolution, requesting party president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to name the Leader of Opposition to avoid bad blood in the faction-ridden Congress.
The Congress central leadership had sent former Union Minister Maken to hold talks with the MLAs.
A two-page resolution was passed requesting the party's central leadership to appoint the leader of opposition.
MLAs Ramniwas Rawat and Mahendra Singh Kalukheda of Jyotiraditya Scindia's camp, Mukesh Naik, a rival of Digvijay, and Bala Bachchan, close aide of former Union Minister Kamal Nath, too had been vying to become leader of opposition.
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