MUMBAI: Prakash Ambedkar, chief of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) aggressively slammed whom he identified as “sleeper cells” within the Congress and a person “Shakuni” within the Mumbai unit. With a lot of difficulty and after long hours of negotiations, the Congress and Ambedkar’s VBA have agreed to join hands, at least in Mumbai for the BMC polls.
As realignments and new alliances unfold ahead of the election to the BMC, the country’s richest municipal body, Ambedkar directly attacked Congress leader Varsha Gaikwad as a “Shakuni” from the Mahabharata, alluding to a cunning and manipulative behaviour, which he said was not desirable.
“The Congress’s high command on one side, and allies like NCP and Shiv Sena on the other side worked like Shakuni. The third thing is that there are sleeper cells in the Congress, you must have seen,” Ambedkar told NDTV on Monday in an exclusive interview.
He said the Congress leadership did not take action against these elements (Shakuni and sleeper cells) despite being aware of their presence and besides his earlier warnings.
The VBA will contest 62 seats in Mumbai as per the arrangement. Regarding alliances in the other 28 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, the leaders of both parties said positive decisions will be taken at the local level, for which both parties have granted authority to their local leadership and cadre.
The decision to form an alliance was formally announced at the Congress headquarters, Tilak Bhavan, by Maharashtra Congress president Harshvardhan Sapkal and VBA’s state vice president Dhairyavardhan Pundkar. However, both Ambedkar and Gaikwad were absent, apparently due to ‘prior commitments’.
Sapkal said the alliance between the Congress and the VBA is a natural one and hoped the parties will work together towards success.
Both parties share the same ideological position and are committed to constitutional values and to building an India envisioned by the Constitution, he said.
The Congress’s city unit was, however, jolted by the party’s U-turn, scrapping its decision to go solo in the upcoming Mumbai civic elections just days before the deadline for filing nominations. There were overtures from the Shiv Sena (UBT) as well, but the local Congress leadership was dead against a tie-up with the UBT which would mean also sharing space with Raj Thackeray’s MNS.
The Congress had earlier asserted it would contest the January 15 local body polls solo on all 227 wards of Mumbai. Apart from the VBA, the Congress has allocated 10 seats to the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh (RSP) and two to the Republican Party of India (Gavai faction), unsettling functionaries of the party’s city unit, leaders said.
Senior leaders pointed out that never before has such an important decision concerning the Mumbai unit been announced by the state Congress president. The city unit president Varsha Gaikwad putting on a brave face, in spite of her disappointment, however, said she is happy with the alliance and the seat sharing pact for Mumbai between the Congress and the VBA.
Leave a Reply