Mumbai, Dec 28 – Apparently desperate to join the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) President Prakash Ambedkar on Thursday shot off a letter to the MVA allies, with his proposal for an equal – 12 constituencies each – seat-sharing in Maharashtra for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The letter is addressed to the top MVA leaders – Shiv Sena-UBT President and ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray, Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar, and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.
“I wrote a letter today to (them) to deliberate and decide on VBA’s proposed formula of 12+12+12+12 for Maharashtra. I reiterated our interest to join the MVA and INDIA (bloc),” said Ambedkar on X.
He also justified the VBA’s proposed seat-share formula, especially when there are multiple speculation opinions coming every corner, and why it was important to take a decision on priority, to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Defeating Modi should be the only priority for MVA. I hope a decision is soon made which is in the interest of the people of Maharashtra,” he urged.
The VBA letter came strategically on a day when the Congress held a mega-rally in Nagpur and a day ahead of the crucial national opposition seat-sharing talks to be held in New Delhi on Friday.
On September 1, Ambedkar had penned a detailed letter to Kharge and other Congress bigwigs expressing a desire to join the national and state Opposition alliance, ahead of the INDIA. bloc meeting in Mumbai. Last week, the VBA state executive met and proposed the new seat-sharing formula, but so far none of the MVA partners have commented on it.
The VBA has also warned that in case the party doesn’t get a place, then it would contest all the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state, raising apprehensions of dividing the Opposition vote-share that could benefit the NDA-BJP.
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