Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pravin Darekar was on Monday elected the new Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council.

Leader of Opposition in Assembly Devendra Fadnavis announced Darekar's name for the prestigious post, earlier held by Nationalist Congress Party's Dhananjay Munde, who has now been elected to the Assembly.

A former Shiv Sena activist, Darekar, 51, started his political career with the party's student wing, Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena (BVS) then handled by Raj Thackeray.

Later, he quit the Sena to join the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena founded by Raj Thackeray where he served as the General Secretary, and led several agitations for the party.

The MNS gave him a ticket and he was elected as a MLA from Magathane (Mumbai) in 2009, but lost the election in 2014 after which he switched over to the (then) ruling BJP.

Darekar was elected as a Member of Legislative Council in 2016, and expressed a desire to contest the 2019 Assembly elections, but was not given a ticket.

Active in the cooperative sectors including banking cooperatives, Darekar pipped other BJP hopefuls like Suresh Dhas, Sujitsingh Thakur and Bhai Girkar to bag the prestigious post.