Prakash Ambedkar: ‘Muslims, Dalits will return to us as this Maharashtra election is about saving quota, not Constitution’

You had an alliance with the AIMIM in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Why are you not in alliance with anyone this time?

Prakash Ambedkar: We have made a social platform along with the OBC Mahasangh and the Eklavya Adivasi organisation. We decentralise the choice of candidates and we will decide how many seats we contest. We have shut the AIMIM down. OBC organisations were with us in 2019. The AIMIM is not an honest party, it runs away. We will have direct relations with Muslims rather than through some organisation. We have fielded 20 Muslim candidates and that is the highest participation in the Assembly polls in the last 70 years.

A view among BJP critics is that Opposition parties should come together. Why did you not think of supporting the INDIA bloc and the Congress?

Prakash Ambedkar: The BJP will decline all the more anyway. But the Congress-led alliance and the Eknath Shinde-led alliance are both Maratha khanawal, or Maratha eateries, as they say in Maharashtra. Both camps are the same. Only two unwanted persons are there in these two: one is Devendra Fadnavis in the Eknath Shinde-led camp and the other is Uddhav Thackeray in the Sharad Pawar-led camp. These Maratha eateries will not share their dish with anyone. They field Marathas in heavy numbers. The two sides comprise family parties. They are like a wedding, where only family members and friends are invited.

Ajit Pawar alongside Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis. (File)

Which of the two holds the electoral edge this time?

Prakash Ambedkar: This election will be between Manoj Jarange Patil and the VBA. The reason is that parties don’t decide policies, people decide them. Jarange Patel’s agitation is to give Marathas reservation under the OBC category and the OBCs are opposing it tooth and nail. Thus, there are two warring groups. Marathas say we won’t vote for OBCs and vice versa. Jarange Patil will announce his candidates and that will damage the national parties.

Where do you stand on the demand for inclusion of Marathas in the OBC category and what are your major poll issues?

Prakash Ambedkar: Our first promise is we will not extend the OBC quota to Marathas. Plus, we believe that these savarnas talk about Make in India and the others, the Bahujans, are Made in India. They are creative craftspeople. They know what can be made in India and how. So, we will be looking at employment generation in feasible ways.

Our third poll issue is a legal guarantee of MSP to farmers. Big farmers don’t bother but small farmers need the MSP guarantee because of agrarian distress. The savarna parties won’t do that because they are aligned with traders’ interests.

Do you think your support base crossed over to the Congress because of the fear that the BJP would end reservation if it returned to power in the Centre with a bigger mandate?

Prakash Ambedkar: Muslims went with the INDIA bloc wholeheartedly in the last Lok Sabha election, 80% of Dalits also shifted. They wanted democracy saved. This time, they will come back to us. The Lok Sabha election was about saving the Constitution and this one is about reservation. Because they are savarna parties, the BJP and the Congress are anti-reservation. Once Jarange Patil announces his list, he will eclipse the national political parties, and 90% of Marathas will go with him.

If the Congress is anti-quota, how do you see Rahul Gandhi making a call for breaching the quota cap, asking for a caste census, and also talking about 90% of society having been deprived of power and representation?

Prakash Ambedkar: Rahul Gandhi is deceitful. He says one thing and his party does exactly the opposite. Telangana and Karnataka have appointed committees for the implementation of the Supreme Court judgment permitting sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes (SCs). OBC and Dalit organisations are saying let us have a reference to the Supreme Court Bench asking whether policy matters can be laid down by the court or whether they are the exclusive jurisdiction of Parliament. The Congress is misleading people.

What do you think about reports of delimitation of seats as per the latest Census?

Prakash Ambedkar: Because of the freeze on the delimitation of seats till 2026, you have to do the Census and delimitation. You will have to appoint a delimitation committee. Delimitation is required as there are 20-lakh voters in a constituency and it is difficult to reach them.

What about the concerns of the south Indian states that their parliamentary representation will suffer if delimitation is implemented as their decadal growth rate of population has been lower than some northern states?

Prakash Ambedkar: Larger northern states should be broken up into smaller states so that no one state dominates because of this.