Babulal Marandi, who recently joined ranks with the Bharatiya Janata Party by merging his Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) with the saffron party, was on Monday elected as the leader of the BJP legislative council in the Jharkhand Assembly and the leader of opposition in the House.

The BJP’s Jharkhand unit, informing of the decision taken earlier today in a meeting of the legislature party, said: “In the meeting of the legislature party held in the state office, Babulal Marandi was unanimously selected as the leader of Jharkhand BJP Legislature Party and Leader of Opposition.”

Marandi later thanked the party for posing faith in him as their leader in the House. The BJP leader said that he will perform his duties for the state and will work to strengthen the party. This comes just a week after Maranadi merged his party, JVM(P), with the BJP. Babulal Marandi began his political career with the saffron party but later formed his own political outfit after a fallout with the BJP over some differences.

In the recent assembly polls, JVM(P) got 3 seats with over 10% vote share. The BJP came in at the second position with 25 of 81 seats. Following the defeat, the BJP reached out to Marandi to merge his political party with the saffron party. On February 17, Marandi merged his party with the BJP in the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah.

Amit Shah welcomed back Marandi into the party fold and said that he had been trying to do so ever since he took over as the president of the BJP in 2014. The Home Minister said that Marandi was quite stubborn and he couldn’t persuade him easily. Marandi’s association with BJP goes back to 1991. A three-time parliamentarian, Marandi has also served as Union Minister of State in the BJP-led NDA government from 1998-2000.