Assembly polls: Maharashtra Bahujan Aghadi sets August 9 deadline for seat-sharing talks with Congress, NCP

“We are giving Congress-NCP time till August 9 to decide about seat-sharing. If they don’t take a decision by then, we will be free to field our candidates,” Laxman Mane, who heads the Maharashtra Bahujan Aghadi (MBA), said at a press conference on Saturday.

THE Maharashtra Bahujan Aghadi, the newly-formed breakaway faction of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, has set a deadline of August 9 for the Congress-NCP alliance to take a decision on seat-sharing in the state assembly elections.

“We are giving Congress-NCP time till August 9 to decide about seat-sharing. If they don’t take a decision by then, we will be free to field our candidates,” Laxman Mane, who heads the Maharashtra Bahujan Aghadi (MBA), said at a press conference on Saturday.

Last month, Mane and a few leaders of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) had floated their own party due to differences with Prakash Ambedkar, who heads the VBA. Mane and other leaders had alleged that the VBA was being “hijacked by BJP-RSS”.

Mane said though he and other leaders had announced the formation of MBA and their intention of joining hands with the Congress-NCP, there had been no offer to hold a dialogue from the alliance. “We can’t remain silent for long. We have to take an early decision. We can’t decide on candidates at the last minute like the Congress-NCP. We need to pick the right candidates in advance,” he said.

The MBA chief said if the Congress-NCP didn’t take a decision by August 9, the party would field candidates in all 288 seats in the assembly elections. “We have a strong following… and we are confident of fielding candidates in all seats,” he said.

Asked how many seats the MBA wanted to contest, if it teamed up with the Congress-NCP, Mane said, “We want to contest 70 seats. But this is not our condition. We are ready to negotiate on the number of seats to be contested… But there should at least be some discussion”.

Mane said he had met Swabhimani Paksha chief Raju Shetti in Sangli two days ago. “Shetti invited me to join the Congress-NCP so as to fight the election together against the BJP-Shiv Sena. I told him that I will not go with BJP-Sena but I will contest under the umbrella of Congress-NCP,” he said.

Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant said a committee has been formed to discuss the issue with all like-minded parties.

Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan they will unite all anti-BJP forces together before the assembly elections.

Prakash Ambedkar, meanwhile, reiterated that the Congress should clarify its stand on whether the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi was a “B-team of BJP”. “We are ready to hold talks but only after the Congress clarifies this issue,” he said.

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