AIMIM walks out of Ambedkar’s VBA, which denies split

Ahead of the state Assembly elections this year, the Prakash Ambedkar-led political front, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), suffered a setback on Friday as Asaduddin

Ahead of the state Assembly elections this year, the Prakash Ambedkar-led political front, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), suffered a setback on Friday as Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) walked out of the alliance over the issue of seat-sharing.

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Imtiyaz Jaleel, the AIMIM MP from Aurangabad, announced the party will now contest the polls on its own. However, the VBA said it has not received any communication from AIMIM. Jaleel said Ambedkar wanted to give only eight of the 288 Assembly seats in the state to AIMIM and that was not acceptable. “Despite lots of efforts, Ambedkar is reluctant, following which the AIMIM chief is forced to take this decision,” he said.

But, VBA working committee member Ratan Bansode said, “We have not received any communication from the AIMIM chief on the snapping of ties. Thus, we still consider them as our alliance partner.”

Before Friday, it was widely believed that the VBA would create trouble for the Congress-NCP in the Assembly elections. Now, the split would mean the front won’t be as strong as it was during the Lok Sabha elections, held earlier this year, which would benefit the Congress-NCP.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Ambedkar and Owaisi had come together to form the VBA, along with various small parties. Ambedkar’s Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh and Owaisi’s AIMIM were the main constituents of the VBA, which contested all 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The only seat it won was Aurangabad, where Jaleel defeated sitting Shiv Sena MP Chandrakant Khaire. However, the VBA ate into the Opposition’s votes and caused the defeat of Congress-NCP candidates in seven constituencies. The Congress-NCP leaders have been accusing VBA of being hand-in-glove with the BJP, to ensure the Opposition’s votes were split.

Around ten days ago, both Ambedkar and Owaisi had a one-on-one meeting, which lasted for three hours, but they could not reach to an agreement. A few days later, Ambedkar sent him a mail, saying that he is willing to give AIMIM eight Assembly seats to contest,” Jaleel said.

This was against the party’s demand for 74 seats. “We then reduced the number of seats to 35 and were ready to reduce it even further, but Ambedkar was not ready to listen,” the AIMIM MP said.

In 2014, Jaleel was elected as an MLA from the Aurangabad Central Assembly constituency. He said the list of eight seats that Ambedkar agreed on, didn’t have the name of his own Assembly seat (Aurangabad Central). The AIMIM is now planning to contest 40 to 50 seats. “We have not anticipated this situation, so we have to start from scratch now. The exact number of seats that we will contest is yet to be decided,” Jaleel said.

The party won two seats — Aurangabad Central and Byculla — of the total 24 seats it contested in the 2014 state Assembly elections. On nine seats, AIMIM candidates were in the second and third positions.

The VBA played an instrumental role in defeating the Opposition alliance —Congress-NCP — in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The front impacted at least seven Lok Sabha seats, where the margin by which the Opposition candidates lost was less than the votes polled by the VBA candidates. The seats were Nanded, Solapur, Parbhani, Buldhana, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Hathkanangle and Sangli. The VBA was able to get 41.08 lakh votes — 7.63% of the total votes polled in the state.