End of Congress plan if Ambedkar accepts Owaisi’s seat demand

Mumbai: The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has told Prakash Ambedkar, who heads the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), that it wants to contest 100 out of 288 seats in Maharashtra as part of the alliance for the forthcoming assembly polls, a development that does not bode well for Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance.

If Ambedkar accepts the AIMIM’s Mumbai: The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has told Prakash Ambedkar, who heads the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), that it wants to contest 100 out of 288 seats in Maharashtra as part of the alliance for the forthcoming assembly polls, a development that does not bode well for Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance.


If Ambedkar accepts the AIMIM’s demand, Congress and the NCP will be left with just 188 seats, which is unlikely to be acceptable to them. This will make it nearly impossible for the Congress to convince Ambedkar to be part of the Congress-NCP alliance, said people aware of the matter.

“We have asked for close to 100 assembly seats for our party. This is the demand of our party workers and functionaries and we have conveyed that,” said Imtiaz Jaleel, president of the AIMIM’s Maharashtra unit.

The AIMIM is part of the VBA, an amalgam of Dalits, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes. Jaleel said his party’s demand was justified since the AIMIM had grown by leaps and bounds.