Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi refuses Congress-NCP offer of 96 seats

MUMBAI: Congress and NCP have offered 96 seats to Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) for the upcoming assembly polls. The Maharashtra Congress leadership has given a formula where out of the 288 seats in the state assembly, the three parties will contest 96 seats each.

While this may seem as the best deal and a magnanimous gesture from Congress and NCP, the devil lies in the details. For instance, Congress and NCP have proposed that Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi will have to accomodate other Congress NCP allies in the 96 seats that are given to it.

While officially Congress and NCP would be giving 96 seats to VBA, after accomodating allies of the two parties, Ambedkar would get lesser seats to contest, not surprisingly the latter has rejected the offer.


Incidentally, Ambedkar had publicly offered around 40 assembly seats to the Congress while the VBA would contest the rest, an implicit understanding from Ambedkar that the latter would ally with the Congress if it ditches the NCP. A section of Congress leaders have been pressurising the leadership in the state to have an alliance with th VBA as the latter has made a lot of inroads among the Dalits and the Muslim community.

However, a deal between Ambedkar and Congress is not likely to happen, said sources from both the parties.

PROPOSAL
Ambedka’s party was asked to accommodate other Congress NCP allies in the 96 seats.