Cong offers 5 seats to VBA

The Congress’ state chief Nana Patole said they had taken a step forward and it was now up to Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) to accept VBA’s proposal

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Congress on Tuesday made a final attempt to induct the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) into the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, offering the party five seats including two from its own quota. The Congress’ state chief Nana Patole said they had taken a step forward and it was now up to Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) to accept VBA’s proposal.

Nagpur, Mar 26 (ANI): Congress candidate from West Nagpur Constituency, Vikas Thakre with Maharashtra party president Nana Patole, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Anil Deshmukh and MVA leaders during the rally for filing his nomination papers ahead of Lok Sabha elections, in Nagpur on Tuesday. (ANI Photo) (Chandrakant Paddhane)

The development came soon after Ambedkar said he would give the MVA one more day to decide on VBA’s demands before announcing candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. Earlier, the MVA had reportedly offered four seats to VBA, but the proposal was rejected by Ambedkar, who maintained that he had not received any such offer.

“Congress has taken a step forward by accepting the proposal put forth by VBA chief Prakash Ambedkar. Now other allies such as Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray should also accept the proposal,” said Patole.

Though the state Congress chief did not provide any details about the proposal, party insiders said that they had offered five seats to VBA, which was in line with Ambedkar’s demands.

“The five seats include two seats from our quota — Akola and Dhule. Now it is up to Thackeray and Pawar to decide as they have to leave two and one seat for the VBA respectively,” said a party insider.

Hours after Patole’s statement, Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said they had not lost hope of VBA joining the MVA coalition. “The discussion over seat sharing is still going on with Ambedkar ji and we are hopeful that he will come with MVA,” Raut told reporters.

However, VBA spokesperson Siddharth Mokale said they had no idea about the offer of five seats. “We have no idea about the five seats offered to us. Let them declare names of those seats,” he said.

Prior to Patole’s statement, Ambedkar had issued a video asking followers of secularism to accept his decision. “I will thwart the attempts to make movement helpless. The followers of Phule, Shahu, and Ambedkar’s ideology should understand the decision and accept it,” he said in the video. He has also called a meeting of VBA’s state executive committee on Wednesday to deliberate on the matter, following which he is expected to announce his decision.

Ambedkar is likely to file his nomination from the Akola Lok Sabha seat on March 28.

With inputs from Saurabh Kulshreshtha