Maha: Shiv Sena (UBT) and Prakash Ambedkar's VBA announce alliance

"There are some bad practices in politics and to eradicate them, the inheritors of these two leaders, and people around them, have come together to protect the country's interest. We are coming together to ensure democracy is alive," Uddhav Thackeray said while announcing the alliance.

Mumbai:The Shiv Sena (UBT) and Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) on Monday announced an alliance, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Shiv Sena founder late Bal Thackeray. While announcing the alliance at a joint press conference, Uddhav Thackeray said his grandfather Keshav Thackeray and Prakash Ambedkar's grandfather, legendary social icon and jurist B R Ambedkar, were contemporaries who admired each other and worked to eradicate social evils and bad practices.

"There are some bad practices in politics and to eradicate them, the inheritors of these two leaders, and people around them, have come together to protect the country's interest. We are coming together to ensure democracy is alive," Thackeray said while announcing the alliance. Thackeray also took this as an opportunity to take a dig at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Without naming the BJP, which is ruling in Maharashtra as well as at the Centre, Thackeray said the country is heading towards autocracy. He also dared the powers-that-be to hold Assembly polls in Maharashtra at the earliest. The state is being ruled by a faction of the Sena that broke away in June last year and the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Thackeray group have routinely called it a dispensation of "traitors".

Speaking about the alliance, which has been forged ahead of civic polls due in several cities, including Mumbai and Thane, Ambedkar said the coming together of the VBA and Shiv Sena (UBT) was the start of the politics of change. The alliance talks between the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the VBA were underway for the last few months, with Ambedkar earlier saying it was up to Thackeray to make the formal announcement.

Ambedkar also said the alliance is between the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the VBA for the moment, but he hoped other constituents of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party) also join. Thackeray said he has not seen opposition from the Congress and NCP to the inclusion of VBA in the MVA.

Last month, the Jogendra Kawade-led People's Republican Party (PRP), which has a following among Dalits in the state, had joined hands with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena. The BJP, which is a partner in Shinde's government, is allied with the Republican Party of India (A) of Ramdas Athawale, who is also a Union minister. (With Agency Inputs)