Shillong, March 8: The Voice of the People Party (VPP) on Wednesday said it would maintain a separate identity in the opposition bench.

VPP chief Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit said that his party is not ready to be part of any forum or alliance to be formed by the opposition parties.

“May be they will have an alliance between the two (opposition parties) but as far as VPP is concerned, we will maintain our separate identity like what I did when I was in the HSPDP. In the last Assembly, we were not part of the opposition forum but still we played a very important role,” he said.

The combined strength of the three opposition parties is 14, of which 5 are from the Congress, 5 All India Trinamool Congress and 4 VPP.

When asked as who will be the leader of opposition from among the 3 political parties, Basaiawmoit said according to the rules, a party must have 10 MLAs to be eligible to elect a leader of opposition but it depends on the two other parties – Congress and AITC – to decide on who will take that job.

He also declared that the VPP will not make any claim as far as this particular matter is concerned.

Further, Basaiawmoit also maintained that the VPP is ready to work with the Congress and the AITC on issues concerning the state.

“It (opposition) is not divided, we will be united on issues,” he said.

With the Budget session all set to commence very soon, the VPP chief assured that the party would surely raise issues mentioned in its election manifesto – like health, education, economic condition of the state and others.

“We will also continue to demand investigation into the alleged corruption against the MDA-I government,” he added.