After months of dilly-dallying, Opposition MVA finally agrees to induct Prakash Ambedkar

Top leaders of the MVA, which comprises of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), the Congress, and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party faction, met at Mumbai’s Hotel Trident where a marathon round of deliberations over seat-sharing, and the questions pertaining to the induction of smaller parties, especially the VBA, took place.

After months of vacillation, the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition on Tuesday finally announced the induction of the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi into the MVA fold even as Mr. Ambedkar complained that his party’s representative was not accorded “due respect” at the seat-sharing meeting held in Mumbai.

Top leaders of the MVA, which comprises of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), the Congress, and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party faction, met at Mumbai’s Hotel Trident where a marathon round of deliberations over seat-sharing, and the questions pertaining to the induction of smaller parties, especially the VBA, took place.

Following the meeting, Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut said that the MVA coalition had become stronger with the induction of several new parties, including Mr. Ambedkar’s VBA, the Left parties, the Peasant and Workers Party of India (PWP) within the opposition fold in Maharashtra.

“Today, we re-organise the MVA by including the Communist Party of India (CPI), the CPI (Marxist), the PWP, and especially the VBA in our fold. We are going forward with our new allies. We have had an extremely positive discussions on several issues today,” Mr. Raut said after a nearly four-hour meeting which ended in the evening.

Despite Mr. Raut’s claims, Mr. Ambedkar, following the meeting, said that the VBA’s State vice-president was “not given due respect in the MVA meeting”.

However, Mr. Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, said the VBA would join the MVA as its priority was to defeat the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Ambedkar said, “Even though VBA’s State vice-president was not given due respect in the MVA meeting, and the VBA is not aware nor informed by AICC or by Ramesh Chennithala whether Nana Patole is having any authority to sign any letters for including VBA in MVA alliance, we will join MVA in the next meeting since VBA’s priority is to defeat the BJP-RSS.”