INDIA alliance ‘over’: Prakash Ambedkar as he begins talks with MVA

A 3-time former MP, Ambedkar, said the coalition first needs to come up with a common minimum programme.

Mumbai: The INDIA alliance already under attack in Bihar and in West Bengal came for a further lashing on Friday when Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar said the it was practically a dead alliance even as he joined the latest round of talks with the Mahavikas Aghadi coalition ahead of the 2024 polls.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut with Dr B R Ambedkar’s grandson and Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar and others during Maharashtra Development Alliance meeting, in Mumbai. (PTI)

A 3-time former MP, Ambedkar, who has been blowing hot and cold while negotiating with the MVA in recent weeks, said the coalition first needs to come up with a common minimum programme before discussing seat-sharing in Maharashtra.

Ambedkar, who had skipped the two previous seat-sharing discussions with the MVA leaders, arrived for the third round of talks much to the visible relief of Sanjay Raut of Sena (UBT), the Congress’s Nana Patole, Ashok Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat and the NCP Sharad Pawar faction’s Jayant Patil and Jitendra Awhad.

Read here: Prakash Ambedkar attends Opposition alliance’s Lok Sabha seat-sharing talks

However, at the end of the 5-hour-long meeting, Ambedkar, who seeks to represent the state’s 11.81 per cent Dalit population as enumerated in the 2011 census, said he had advised the MVA to devise a common minimum programme before seat-sharing talks lest they too collapse like the INDIA alliance. “The INDIA alliance exists no more as most of the major regional parties have already left it,” he told the media. “The Congress and the Samajwadi Party will contest separately it seems. The Trinamool Congress has already parted ways with the coalition. We are just taking precaution that the same should not happen with the MVA, and hence the suggestion about the common minimum programme.”

Ambedkar also clarified that despite his presence at the talks on Friday, the VBA is not yet formally a part of the MVA. “At present we have an alliance with the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP only. Talks with the Congress are in progress, and we have still to speak with their national president Mallikarjun Kharge.”

Despite his CMP demand, a Sena (UBT) leader revealed that he has sought to contest on six Lok Sabha seats within the alliance. These are Akola, Mumbai South Central, Solapur, Parbhani, Amaravati and Buldhana. Of these 6, Solapur, Akola and Mumbai South-Central were contested by the Congress in the 2019; Parbhani and Buldhana by the NCP while independent candidate Navneet Rana was supported by NCP and Congress in Amravati. She has since informally switched allegiance to the BJP.

Sanjay Raut tried to play down Ambedkar’s comments on the INDIA alliance insisting that the opposition parties were still in seat-sharing talks and were united in their cause to defeat the BJP, but within the MVA itself there is unease about the inclusion of the VBA.

Ambedkar and AMIM had come together to form the VBA in the last general elections but soon parted ways. While Owaisi managed to get one MP elected from Aurangabad, Ambedkar’s VBA does not have a single MP or MLA at present. Sharad Pawar, in the past, has been reluctant to partner with Ambedkar believing he cut into the NCP’s vote share resulting in the defeat of at least half a dozen Congress-NCP candidates in 2019.

But given the political realignment in Maharashtra, MVA leaders are of the view that including Ambedkar in the coalition may help them in as many as 10 Lok Sabha seats in 2024.