Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA) President Prakash Ambedkar.
Credit: PTI File Photo
The social and political alliance of Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Classes will bring a political change in Maharashtra, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) founder Prakash Ambedkar said even as he continues to target the two diametrically opposite alliances - ruling Maha Yuti (NDA) and Maha Vikas Aghadi (I.N.D.I.A.).
“A change in Maharashtra is going to come,” he said in the run up to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections, expected around October-November.
“Both the Congress and BJP have ghettoised SCs and STs into reserved constituencies only. VBA aims to change this casteist trend,” he said.
A lawyer, social worker and also a politician, Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, is a two-time Lok Sabha MP from Akola and a one-term Rajya Sabha member.
Ambedkar’s statement comes at a time when the Maha Yuti comprising of the BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP and the Maha Vikas Aghadi including Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-headed Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) are engaged in intense seat-sharing negotiations.
Slamming the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar dispensation, Ambedkar said, "Has the Shinde and BJP-led government diverted funds from the budget meant for the welfare of SCs and STs? A month ago, this very government had diverted funds from the welfare budget of SCs and STs to be used for non-SC and ST spendings."
Ambedkar said, "Be it the BJP or the Congress, both have been diverting funds in their state governments to other schemes from the budget of SCs and STs for other schemes. Why not make a separate budgetary provision rather than doing so at the cost of the welfare of SCs and STs."
Ambedkar said that in addition to nominating ST candidates from reserved constituencies, VBA will nominate ST candidates from open seats.
"This is how VBA is different," he said.