With the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s (MNS) strength in the House now reduced to 28 corporators, which is at par with the Congress’, Mayor Vaishali Bankar appointed Congress corporator Arvind Shinde as the new leader of Opposition during the Pune Municipal Corporation’s General Body (GB) meeting yesterday.

The MNS was the principal opposition party with MNS corporator Vasant More holding the post of leader of the opposition. But, after the recent disqualification of the MNS corporators Priya Gadade and Kalpana Bahirat, the party was in direct conflict with the Congress that had laid its claim on the post of leader of opposition, after arguing that it had equal number of corporators as the MNS.