After months of vacillation, the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition on Tuesday finally announced the induction of the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi into the MVA fold even as Mr. Ambedkar complained that his party’s representative was not accorded “due respect” at the seat-sharing meeting held in Mumbai.
Top leaders of the MVA, which comprises of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), the Congress, and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party faction, met at Mumbai’s Hotel Trident where a marathon round of deliberations over seat-sharing, and the questions pertaining to the induction of smaller parties, especially the VBA, took place.
Following the meeting, Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut said that the MVA coalition had become stronger with the induction of several new parties, including Mr. Ambedkar’s VBA, the Left parties, the Peasant and Workers Party of India (PWP) within the opposition fold in Maharashtra.
“Today, we re-organise the MVA by including the Communist Party of India (CPI), the CPI (Marxist), the PWP, and especially the VBA in our fold. We are going forward with our new allies. We have had an extremely positive discussions on several issues today,” Mr. Raut said after a nearly four-hour meeting which ended in the evening.
Despite Mr. Raut’s claims, Mr. Ambedkar, following the meeting, said that the VBA’s State vice-president was “not given due respect in the MVA meeting”.
However, Mr. Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, said the VBA would join the MVA as its priority was to defeat the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Ambedkar said, “Even though VBA’s State vice-president was not given due respect in the MVA meeting, and the VBA is not aware nor informed by AICC or by Ramesh Chennithala whether Nana Patole is having any authority to sign any letters for including VBA in MVA alliance, we will join MVA in the next meeting since VBA’s priority is to defeat the BJP-RSS.”
Soon after the MVA’s meeting, Dr. Dhairyavardhan Pundkar, the VBA’s representative, complained that the MVA had ‘insulted’ the VBA as the latter party’s representatives were reportedly kept out of the meeting for nearly an hour.
However, Mr. Raut refuted the claims of Dr. Pundkar, remarking, “I think there has been some misunderstanding. The VBA had sent three leaders as their representatives. They were part of our discussions and even had lunch with us. They wanted a letter regarding their induction into the MVA fold. We have given that.”
Mr. Raut further said there was no discord within the MVA and that Mr. Ambedkar would be present for the February 2 meeting of the coalition parties.
The MVA’s induction comes soon after Mr. Ramesh Chennithala said last week that the Congress had given the responsibility of holding talks with the VBA to its Maharashtra president Nana Patole, legislature party leader Balasaheb Thorat and former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan.
While Mr. Ambedkar formed an alliance with Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) early last year, he has expressed his frustrations at the Congress dragging its feet over inducting the VBA into the Opposition MVA coalition in Maharashtra.
Mr. Ambedkar had said last year that his party had written on this issue to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in September at the time of the third Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance bloc meeting in Mumbai but had received no response from the Congress on this count.
As per sources, the prime reason for the Congress and the NCP dithering over inducting the VBA is that in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Mr. Ambedkar’s party, then allied with the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, had played havoc by fragmenting the Ambedkarite-minority votes that traditionally went to the Congress and the NCP, causing defeats of Congress candidates in at least nine Lok Sabha seats.
