Mumbai: Congress has named Dr Abhay Patil as the party candidate from Akola Lok Sabha constituency of Maharashtra for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The seat is set to witness a triangular contest. Patil, who is the General Secretary of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee will take on sitting BJP MP Sanjay Dhotre's son Anup Dhotre and Prakash Ambedkar of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi in the upcoming Lok Sabha election 2024.
Interestingly, the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi was in seat sharing talks with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi a few days ago. VBA candidate for the Akola seat, Prakash Ambedkar lost from the seat in the 2019 polls against sitting BJP MP Sanjay Dhotre. Sanjay has decided to sit out this time around to make way for his son Anup Dhotre.
Significantly, the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi has announced the candidature of eight candidates in the first list and 11 people in the second list. The break-up of the Maha Vikas Aghadi and the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi is believed to break the votes of the opposition camp and help the prospects of the Shiv Sena(Eknath Shinde faction)-BJP coalition in the Lok Sabha election 2024.
Interestingly, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the candidates of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi secured a mere two to three votes in some seats. Political analysts believe that the votes of some backward classes and Muslim community can be gained by the party in the state even now to the detriment of Prakash Ambedkar.
It is said that since the underprivileged will fight on their own, the Maha Vikas Aghadi will be hit more than the Grand Alliance in the upcoming elections. The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi is optimistic that it will definitely get elected in some seats in Marathwada, West Maharashtra.
The target seats for the party are Akola, Solapur, Buldhana, Gadchiroli, Hatkanangle, Hingoli, Latur, Nanded, Parbhani and Sangli. In Sangli, the VBA candidate got more than 2 lakh 50 thousand votes.
Given the history of VBA, the party first formed an alliance with MIM in 2019. But eventually broke the alliance. Later, the party formed an alliance with Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena one and a half years ago, but this alliance did not last long.
The VBA has decided to take a different stance and leave the Mahavikas Aghadi prompting Congress state president Nana Patole dub the party as 'BJP's 'B' team'. Responding to this, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi President Prakash Ambedkar said “Whether we are BJP's B team or anyone else's, I will tell this to Nana Patole at the right time”.
Political analyst Jayant Mainkar said that the Maha Vikas Aghadi or mainly the Congress will bear the brunt of the VBA snub. “Due to the classification of votes, only the Grand Alliance will benefit. It will be known on June 4 whether the impact of the underprivileged will fall on the Mahavikas Aghadi or the Mahayuti,” he added.
