Prakash Ambedkar offers 144 seats to Congress

After an initial snub, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) founder Prakash Ambedkar has scaled up its offer to Congress for a tie-up and agreed to work on an allocation of 144 seats for Assembly polls scheduled for October.

This translates to 50% strength of 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

In July, VBA has offered Congress just 40 seats. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the VBA had damaged the prospects of Congress and NCP.

In fact, two former chief ministers - Ashok Chavan (Nanded) and Sushilkumar Shinde (Solapur) lost the polls because of VBA candidates.

Ambedkar himself contested from two seats - Akola and Solapur, but lost. However, journalist-turned-politician Imtiaz Jaleel, the candidate of AIMIM, that had an alliance with VBA won the Aurangabad seat.

However, Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that VBA must come out with a serious proposal.

The Congress and NCP are contesting in alliance and senior leaders are working out a seat-sharing formula.