For the post of Leader of Opposition, will NCP and Congress merge?

The status is granted to the party that gets at least 10% of the Lok Sabha's 543 seats

The Congress has won 52 seats in the new Lok Sabha. This means none of its leaders would be eligible for the Opposition leader status in the Lok Sabha. The status is granted to the house leader of the principal Opposition party but only if that party gets at least 10 per cent of the Lok Sabha's 543 seats. The Congress is a couple of seats short. A section in the Congress believes it is time that the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) merged with the Congress. This, according to some, will serve two purposes. The NCP has five MPs in the new Lok Sabha. Merging with the Congress would take the Congress tally to 57 in the Lok Sabha, and would entitle the Congress party's leader in the House for leader of the Opposition status. Moreover, this could also help the two parties have greater synergy as they prepare for the Maharashtra Assembly polls in September-October. However, NCP sources have, until now, denied the possibility of a merger with the Congress.

 

Queue of hopefuls

With access to the Prime Minister rather difficult since he had been travelling over the past few days, those hopeful of a ministerial berth have started approaching senior members of the erstwhile cabinet. Since Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley are mostly not available to meet anyone, the hopefuls have crowded the residences of Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, JP Nadda and Thawar Chand Gehlot. By common consent, these former ministers are sure to get a cabinet post and are thought to be the ones who can get a word in with the Prime Minister or Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah.

 

Ducking after stepping out

The cricketer-turned-politician and the BJP's East Delhi winner, Gautam Gambhir, on Monday raised his voice on Twitter against the alleged assault on a Muslim man in the Gurugram neighbourhood. He asked authorities to take "exemplary" action in the matter. While Gambhir had invoked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “sabka saath, sabka vikas” slogan in his tweet, not everyone in the Delhi unit of his party was happy with his public outburst. A section of Delhi BJP leaders were of the view that the party's newest member should focus on his constituency and urged him not to “interfere” in issues concerning Haryana.