Ball in Thackeray’s court: Ambedkar on seat sharing for Lok Sabha polls

Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar on Tuesday stepped up the pressure on the Shiv Sena (UBT) over a seat-sharing formula, threatening he would contest all 48 seats if Uddhav Thackeray did not decide on it soon

Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar on Tuesday stepped up the pressure on the Shiv Sena (UBT) over a seat-sharing formula, threatening he would contest all 48 seats if Uddhav Thackeray did not decide on it soon.

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“Shiv Sena (UBT) is with Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA). The talks of alliance between us and Sena (UBT) have been on for a year, but Thackeray is stuck with MVA over seat sharing. The ball is now in Thackeray’s court. If they do not take a decision soon, we will field candidates in all 48 LS constituencies in the state,” Ambedkar said.

Expressing the need for opposition unity to fight BJP, he said a leader of a regional party can become chief minister only in parliamentary democracy.

“However, BJP-RSS in coming years will try to bring the presidential form of democracy. Therefore, to protect the parliamentary democracy in the country all regional opposition parties should unite against BJP and national-level parties should support them. If democracy survives, political parties will survive,” Ambedkar said and hinted that Congress should take a supportive and inclusive approach in alliance with all parties.