The Congress on January 17, 2023, appointed Amit Chavda as its legislature party leader in Gujarat and Shailesh Parmar as the deputy leader. Chavda had earlier served as the Gujarat Congress chief.

In a communication to Gujarat unit head Jagdish Thakor, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K.C. Venugopal stated that the party president has approved the nomination of Mr. Chavda as the leader and Mr. Parmar as the deputy leader of the Congress Legislature Party in the state.

The Gujarat Assembly Secretariat recently asked the opposition Congress to appoint its “authorised person” or leader in the House before January 19.

Amit Chavda, 46, is a five-term legislator from central Gujarat’s Anand district. Between 2018 and 2021, he was the president of the state legislature. He won the Anklav seat in Anand in the Gujarat Assembly elections in December 2022, defeating Bharatiya Janata Party’s Gulabsinh Padhiyar.

Meanwhile, Shailesh  Parmar, 53, won his fourth election last year from Ahmedabad’s Danilimda seat, reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates, by defeating BJP’s Naresh Vyas.

The opposition parties are supposed to appoint their respective leaders in the House within 30 days of swearing-in of the newly-elected members of the Legislative Assembly, as per law. Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly in Gujarat were sworn in on December 19, 2022.

In the 182-member Gujarat Assembly elections last month, the ruling BJP won 156 seats, while the Congress finished a distant second with 17. The Aam Aadmi Party won five seats, while independents won three and the Samajwadi Party won one.

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