‘Outcome in 5 Assembly polls will determine permutations for Lok Sabha polls’: Prakash Ambedkar

The VBA is in an alliance with the Shiv Sena (UBT) in Maharashtra. “The VBA had taken the initiative to be part of INDIA but we were not invited to the last INDIA meet held in Mumbai,” Ambedkar pointed out, saying that the Congress should be more accommodating. “There has to be some give and take for INDIA to work,” he said.

Ambedkar also referred to the Congress and Samajwadi Party’s differences over seat sharing in Madhya Pradesh, saying that it does not augur well for the Opposition INDIA alliance. “If Congress does not accommodate its alliance partners, how will the Opposition front function together? They say the INDIA front was only for Lok Sabha and not state Assembly polls. If this was the stated position, they should have made it clear before forming INDIA,” he said.

“The problem is Congress’s high-handedness. They always use and throw their alliance partners. They are using INDIA to serve their own political interests,” the grandson of Dr B R Ambedkar said. “You cannot use allies when it suits you and then discard them when not required. Such an approach will not work,” he added.

Ambedkar said that the issue should not be about power or seat sharing. “The foremost concern should be to put in place a strong Opposition which can fight BJP/RSS. Instead, what happens is Opposition parties are fighting each other, exposing their differences,” he said.

The VBA, Ambedkar said, was closely monitoring developments and preparing for the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Maharashtra. “The VBA is focusing on expanding its electoral base by reaching out to poor Marathas along with OBC, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes,” he added.

The VBA leader also underplayed his recent meeting with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar at Y B Chavan Centre in Mumbai. “Our alliance is only with Shiv Sena (UBT). I had been to Y B Chavan Centre for a function…Pawar and his daughter Supriya Sule’s office is in Y B Chavan Centre. Sule invited us for coffee. We did not talk politics. It was just general talk over coffee in the presence of 20 other people,” he said.