Congress-NCP won't undermine threats from BRS, VBA, AIMIM

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) headed by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) cannot be taken lightly by the Maha Vikas Aghadi leadership in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls in Maharashtra.

The leadership of Congress and the Sharad Pawar-headed NCP is very clear on this issue.

The back-to-back Maharashtra visits of KCR, as Rao is popularly known, has, in fact, come as a surprise.

KCR who had already addressed meetings and rallies in Nanded, Kandar Loha in Nanded, Aurangabad, which is now known as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, and Nagpur - will visit Pandharpur in Solapur district on 27 June ahead of the Ashadi Ekadashi festivities. KCR and his ministerial colleagues and top leaders would have the darshan of Lord Vitthal in Pandharpur.

Incidentally, the Solapur district has a very high Telugu-speaking population.

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The BRS plans to contest all the 48 Lok Sabha and 288 Vidhan Sabha seats.

The Telangana state borders Vidarbha and Marathwada and people from both sides have relations.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the VBA, which had an alliance with AIMIM, got a 14 per cent vote share and created a big dent in the Congress vote bank and impacted it as well as the NCP badly. The VBA comprises groups of Dalits, Tribals, Dhangars, Kolis, Agris, Banjaras, Malis, Kaikadis and other communities. However, before the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, the VBA-AIMIM alliance broke but it had an impact.

Two senior NCP veterans - Leader of Opposition in Assembly Ajit Pawar, a four-time former Chief Minister and Chhagan Bhujbal, also a former Deputy Chief Minister and ex-state President flagged concerns.

“BRS and VBA cannot be ignored. In 2019, VBA alone caused damage to the Congress -NCP alliance. We have to ensure there is no division of votes between like-minded parties. We cannot ignore BRS and VBA,” said Pawar.

“Yes, we have seen their visits to Maharashtra. The BRS surely cannot be ignored by us. They have named the secretariat in Hyderabad as the Dr B. R. Ambedkar Telangana Secretariat. They are reaching out to all sections,” added Bhujbal.

Veteran Congressman Ashok Chavan, a former Chief Minister and ex-stare President, too sounds caution. “The two parties AIMIM and BRS work to divide votes in Maharashtra and it directly benefits the BJP,” said Chavan, who hails from Nanded, where the BRS made its entry.

State Congress President Nana Patole said: “We have seen the Gujarat pattern and now he (KCR) is coming with the Telangana pattern…people of Telangana know the reality…we will get (Congress) leaders from Telangana to speak.”

If one looks at VBA, it has an alliance with Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT). The coming together of the Thackeray and Ambedkar families is to further the ‘Shiv Shakti-Bhim Shakti’ alliance propagated by the late Balasaheb Thackeray, who founded the Shiv Sena 56 years ago. Thackeray is the son of the late Balasaheb Thackeray and grandson of Prabodhankar Thackeray, the legendary social reformer while Ambedkar is the grandson of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Constitution. However, the alliance is limited to Shiv Sena (UBT) and does not cover MVA year.

A veteran, Ambedkar recently created a stir when went to the tomb of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in Khuldabad and paid tributes - triggering reactions from BJP and Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. After this posters of Aurangzeb with Ambedkar and Thackeray surfaced in Mumbai.