Prakash Ambedkar hardens stance over alliance with Congress, gives seven-day ‘ultimatum’ to respond

Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi chief Prakash Ambedkar has hardened his stance on allying with Congress and INDIA bloc for 2024 General Election, giving ultimatum of one week to respond to his alliance offer. If no response, VBA will contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra on its own.

Hardening his stance over allying with the Congress and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc for the 2024 General Election, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar on Monday said if the Congress did not respond to the VBA’s offer of alliance within a week, then the party would contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra on its own.

Explaining the reason behind his ‘ultimatum’, Mr. Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, said that while Congress leaders had been claiming they had yet to receive any alliance proposal from the VBA, his party had, in fact, written to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on September 1 when the party and its allies were in Mumbai for the third INDIA bloc meeting.

Mr. Ambedkar said that an e-mail from VBA spokesperson Advocate Priyadarshi Telang to Mr. Kharge was written to request the Congress to debunk the on-going speculation of the VBA being sent an invitation for the INDIA alliance meeting in Mumbai.

“The second objective was to convey that the VBA’s doors are open for an alliance. It has been almost a month since the e-mail was sent and made public on Mr. Telang’s X (formerly Twitter) handle, but there has been no response from Mr. Kharge or any of his associates in the Congress,” claimed Mr. Ambedkar.

The VBA chief demanded to know whether his party was ever going to receive a reply from the Congress.

“If not, then the Congress should explain to the people of Maharashtra why it does not want to involve the representation of Vanchits and Bahujans (Deprived and Majority) in the alliance. It should explain why a party [the VBA], which garnered 6.98 and 5.57% vote share in the 2019 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections, has not been invited or included in the INDIA alliance,” said Mr. Ambedkar.

Mr. Ambedkar is allied with Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) in Maharashtra. The Sena (UBT), is in turn, allied with the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP faction as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition.