Congress appoints Abhay Kashinath Patil from Akola, Maharashtra as VBA (Vanchit) between Congress and Prakash Ambedkar Bahujan Aghadi) laid a solid foundation for establishing friendly relations. Although the alliance plan between Maha Vikas Aghadi and VBA fell through, the Congress and Mr. Ambedkar have declared support for each other, especially the Akola seat that the Dalit leader hopes to contest.
In Telangana, the Grand Old Party has announced a candidate from Warangal – Kadiyan Kavya, who a few days ago moved from K Chandrasekhar Rao’s Bharat Rashat Transition to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi. Ms. Kavya is the daughter of senior BRS leader and current MP Kadiam Srihari, who also served as deputy chief minister in the then BRS government. Pasunoori Dayakar, the sitting BRS Lok Sabha MP from Warangal, also recently joined the Congress from Telangana.
In Maharashtra, when the MVA and VBA discuss seat-sharing, the alliance is ready to hand over Akola seat to Prakash Ambedkar along with four other seats.
But after the VBA decided to go it alone, Congress – which had been pushing for cooperation – said it would support Mr Ambedkar from Akola. Mr Ambedkar, whose party enjoys strong support among Dalits in the state, has also pledged support to the Congress in several seats.
However, National’s move to unseat its own candidate suggests it no longer supports the VBA as promised, and vice versa.
Last week, the Ambedkar-led VBA announced its intention to go it alone in the elections, unhappy with the failure to reach an understanding on a handful of contested seats in the state. Mr Ambedkar later claimed that he had spoken to Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil and received his support.
Soon after, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena UBT preemptively announced its candidates for 17 seats, sparking speculation of open rifts within the MVA. Four of the 17 seats are coveted by the Congress.
