VBA-MVA seat-sharing talks off amid charges of Ambedkar overplaying his hand

Ambedkar was not invited for the Thursday meeting at Sharad Pawar’s Mumbai home where State Congress chief Nana Patole, senior party leader Balasaheb Thorat and Raut participated. Uddhav Thackeray was absent as he is campaigning in Sangli

Mumbai: Subtle hints may not be Sanjay Raut’s forte but on Thursday, the Shiv Sena (UBT) MP and spokesperson dropped enough of them to indicate that the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s proposed alliance with Prakash ASmbedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) was off the table. Raut indicated that seat-sharing talks between the two political outfits had not borne fruit. With elections just two months away, it looks like Ambedkar might go for it alone.

Prakash Ambedkar

If VBA were to contest independently or and team up with other smaller parties, it may well cut into the MVA coalition’s vote share. At the same time, the possibility of Ambedkar not being a part of the opposition coalition could upset his Dalit support base.

“The MVA offered Ambedkar 4 Lok Sabha seats but we have seen that he has decided to take a different path. We would have been happy had he accepted the offer and joined us,” said Raut. “The MVA is fighting to save democracy and India’s constitution and Ambedkar’s support would have given strength to this struggle.”

Ambedkar was not invited for the Thursday meeting at Sharad Pawar’s Mumbai home where State Congress chief Nana Patole, senior party leader Balasaheb Thorat and Raut participated. Uddhav Thackeray was absent as he is campaigning in Sangli. MVA leaders HT spoke to indicated that Ambedkar may have overplayed his hand asking for a higher seat-share for his party that was not in consonance with ground reality.

“VBA has not won any Lok Sabha seat in the last two elections. Ambedkar himself has failed to win his Akola Lok Sabha constituency for the last two decades. Uddhav Thackeray wanted Ambedkar in MVA so he convinced Pawar and the Congress leaders,” said a Sena (UBT) leader not wanting to be named. “His party’s vote share has been falling consistently.” VBA, sources say, had demanded Akola, Amravati, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Hingoli, Nanded, Solapur, Mumbai South, Sangli seats. Except for Akola all the other seats have strong presence of either the Congress or the Thackeray faction. A VBA leader, also unwilling to be quoted, said that in response to their demands, the MVA offered them only two seats—Akola and Mumbai north where the BJP is nearly impregnable.

Among Ambdekar’s support base the reactions to the break with the INDIA alliance is mixed. If there were those who said he had been offered a raw deal by the MVA, there were other voices that claimed he should have, regardless, become a part of the anti-BJP front.

“Ambedkar has good chance to at least win a minimum of two seats by entering into a seat-sharing pact with MVA. It now seems that Ambedkar’s politics would again be end up being favourable for the BJP and its allies. A section of our community will not support such politics any longer.” said a former student of Milind college founded by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar at Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar who is politically active in the region.

VBA chief spokesperson Siddharth Mokale issued a statement on Thursday refuting reports that the VBA demanded 6 seats. When asked about rumours of VBA trying to tie-up with K Chandrashekhar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samitee (BRS) Mokale said the final call would be Ambedkar’s.

In 2019, the VBA’s vote share was 6.92% when it was in alliance with Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) which won Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar. In the assembly elections held 6 months later, by which time Owaisi and Ambedkar had parted company, the VBA got 4.6% vote share.

Surendra Jondhale, a scholar and analyst of Dalit Politics in Maharashtra, said that Ambedkar may have overplayed his hand. “Prakash Ambedkar and his party could not win a single seat, including his own Akola seat in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Keeping this in mind, had he joined the MVA it could have helped him win a couple of seats and could have been in the interest of Dalit politics in Maharashtra. But the manner in which Ambedkar demanded more seats it smacked of manipulation as opposed to negotiation,” he said.