Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 | Prakash Ambedkar-led VBA comes up with tagline 'Vanchito Ka Raaj Aayega' ahead of polls

Mumbai: With a tagline - ‘Vanchito Ka Raaj Aayega’, the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) has prepared for the do-or-die elections for the party, which is yet to enter any law-making body.

VBA founder Prakash Ambedkar (70), the grandson of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, is currently recuperating after an angioplasty in Pune.

“Balasaheb Ambedkar has been discharged from the hospital. On the advice of the doctor, Balasaheb has been moved to a wellness centre, where he will go through post-angioplasty care and recovery. Balasaheb will return to election campaigning after 4-5 days,” the VBA said on Sunday night.

The VBA is contesting most of the 288 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. The Election Commission of India has allowed the VBA the symbol of ‘gas cylinder.’

A lawyer-politician-social activist, Ambedkar, is a two-time Lok Sabha MP from Akola and one-term Rajya Sabha MP.

Ambedkar floated the VBA on 20 March 2018, however, so far have not managed to win a single seat in the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls.

However, it has emerged as an important force - and the impact of the VBA has been felt by the opposite alliances - Maha Yuti and Maha Vikas Aghadi and before that the saffron alliance and Democratic Front.

In the run up to the polls, Ambedkar has called upon the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) to get 100 MLAs elected among these communities and see the change.

In 2019, in the Lok Sabha polls, the VBA had garnered 6.98 per cent vote share while it managed 5.57 percentage in the Vidhan Sabha polls. In the 2024 general elections, the vote share was 2.77 per cent.

Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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