After poll drubbing that saw Dalits ‘shift to Congress’, Prakash Ambedkar’s VBA has tough road ahead

Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, which fought LS polls on its own after talks with MVA fell through, saw vote share reduced to just 3% in seats it contested in Maharashtra.

PURVA CHITNIS

Mumbai: Prakash Ambedkar’s decision to go it alone in the Lok Sabha elections appears to have cost him dearly, with a chunk of Dalit voters possibly moving to the Congress from his Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA).

ThePrint’s analysis of Election Commission data shows that the VBA’s vote share has plunged to just 3 percent in the 42 seats it contested in Maharashtra, compared to 6.99 percent in 2019, when it contested 47.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the VBA had tied up with the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and damaged the prospects of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) coalition in at least seven seats. The AIMIM contested just one seat in Maharashtra, Aurangabad, which it won with 32.45 percent of the vote.

The alliance with the AIMIM broke up ahead of the assembly elections later that year, and the VBA went on to win 4.5 percent of the vote, or 5.5 percent in just the seats it contested (236 out of 288 seats).

This time around, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi — consisting of the Congress, the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) — had tried to form an alliance with the VBA. However, the talks fell through and Ambedkar decided to fight the elections alone.

Nevertheless, the MVA was able to win 30 of the state’s 48 seats and has also got the support of an Independent victor. The data shows that the VBA’s impact on its prospects was limited.

The VBA polled more than the winning margin in six seats: Akola, Hingoli, Buldhana, Beed, Hatkanangale and Mumbai North West. Apart from Hingoli and Beed, all these seats fell into the ruling Mahayuti’s kitty and the opposition MVA came second. The Mahayuti consists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.

Political analyst Hemant Desai says the “damage” done by the VBA (to the MVA) was minimal

“Last time around, he (Ambedkar) made sure that he would do damage, but this time he tried to show that he was with the MVA. He continuously spoke about saving the Constitution, so why he chose to follow a different path is still a question. However, with the way MVA handled Ambedkar this time, the damage done is minimal,” he says.

While Ambedkar did campaign against the BJP, he was unable to make gains.The VBA has its own voice but not the means as of now, says Ajinkya Gaikwad, a political science researcher at Mumbai’s SIES College.

 “We normally underestimate the Dalit voter by thinking that since Prakash Ambedkar is from the Ambedkar household, he or she will go for it ideologically — but they think about winnability as well,” says Gaikwad.

In a letter to supporters after the results were announced, Ambedkar wrote,“We are disappointed but we have not given up on hope. We will introspect about our failures. It is not rocket science to understand that some elements in the Maha Vikas Aghadi deliberately did not include the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi in the alliance. We were invited to meetings. But that was all for the media and voters. We fell into their trap and miserably failed to convince the voters of our humiliation and the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s narrow-minded attitude towards our party,”

He added that there was  still a little time before the Maharashtra assembly elections, due in four months. “In the coming months, we will engage more with voters to build a stronger relationship with them.”

VBA’s impact

Akola — where Ambedkar himself was the candidate and came third —  and Hingoli are the only two constituencies where the VBA secured more than 1 lakh votes.

Anup Dhotre of the BJP won the Akola seat, while Dr Abhay Patil of the Congress was in second position. Dhotre got 4,57,030 votes while Patil received 4,16,404 and Ambedkar 2,76,747.

In Buldhana, the VBA’s Vasant Magar got 98,441 votes, while the difference between the Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s winning candidate Prataprao Jadhav — now a minister of state — and the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Narendra Khedekar was a mere 29,479.

In Hatkanangale, the VBA’s D.C. Patil got 32,696 votes while the difference between the Sena (UBT)’s Satyajeet Patil and the victor, the Shinde-led Sena’s Dhairyasheel Mane, was only 13,426.

Similarly in Mumbai North West, where the Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Waikar won by a hair-thin margin of 48 votes against the Sena (UBT)’s Amol Kirtikar, the VBA’s Parmeshwar Ranshur got 10,052 votes.

In Beed, although Bajrang Sonawane of the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) won against the BJP’s Pankaja Munde by a whisker — 6,553 votes — the VBA’s Ashok Hinge received 50,867 votes. An alliance might have ensured a more comfortable victory.

However, Ambedkar blames the MVA for failing to offer a respectable number of seats.

“In the last meeting, the MVA told us that we would be given two seats. One was Mumbai North and the other was Akola. However, the MVA used to tell the media that it was offering four to six seats. But these seats did not include the ones where our candidates had secured more than 1 lakh votes. Moreover, Mumbai North was a difficult seat. And the Akola seat was also an uncertain one. It makes sense to contest on our own strength rather than go with the INDIA bloc and be defeated,” Ambedkar wrote in his letter.

He added: “It was the VBA that tried to get itself included in the MVA. The MVA invited us for a few select meetings but not for all meetings.”

But MVA partners say that Ambedkar did not show any willingness to join the alliance.

“It is a matter of who is following what issue. If he had joined us, then our tally would definitely have gone up. He needs to think ahead,” Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe tells ThePrint.

Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Anand Dubey agrees.

“Actually in many places, their candidates’ deposit has been lost. Prakash Ambedkar himself lost the election. So going forward, if he still decides to stay separate and divide the votes, only the BJP will benefit,” says Dubey.

‘Organisational weakness’ & challenges ahead

The major reason for the VBA’s plummeting vote share could be a lack of organisational strength and social media messaging, says Gaikwad.

He adds: “Also, we cannot forget that Dalit voters have been the Congress’s vote bank for years, and so there was a sense among them that they should keep the ideology of aligning with Ambedkar aside and go for a secular party to defeat Hindutva forces. It would also mean that the vote is not wasted.”

Desai thinks Ambedkar won’t be a threat in the upcoming state assembly elections “because his credibility has been affected”.

Gaikwad also says the VBA will be thoroughly tested in the coming days.

“Ambedkar will remain relevant in politics even in future because he has a face and a name, but whether or not it will remain relevant as a party needs to be seen,” says Gaikwad.

(Edited by Rohan Manoj)

Courtesy : The Print

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