Don’t Know Why I Was Not Picked As Oppn Leader: Jayanarayan Mishra

Bhubaneswar: After remaining tight-lipped for nearly three weeks, senior BJP leader Jayanarayan Mishra on Friday expressed his anguish for not being picked as leader of the Opposition.

“All my party MLAs had told me that they have proposed my name as leader of the Opposition to the Central observers. Even the Central observers had told me about this. But I don’t know what happened and why the decision was changed later. The Central party leaders can say something about this,” Mishra told mediapersons here.

He said he had the role of an Opposition leader for about a month on the advice of the party leadership.

Asked whether he was sidelined by the party leadership over the support of the BJD to the BJP candidate Ashwini Vaishnav to be elected as a member of Rajya Sabha from Odisha, Mishra said it might be the reason.

To another question on whether his suspension from the party in 2017 could be the other reason, he said he had done nothing wrong. “Rather the party leadership revoked the suspension order with an apology,” he pointed out.