Jalgaon, Dec 19 (IANS): The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), led by Prakash Ambedkar, plans to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in at least 30 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats of Maharashtra in the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2024.
Addressing a public rally here late on Monday, Ambedkar urged his workers to "take a solemn pledge" to defeat the BJP and its allies like Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party-AP, and its supporters.
"The BJP has set a target to bag at least 45 of the constituencies… We have to set the agenda to target and defeat the BJP and its allies in 30 out these 45 seats," he asserted.
Admitting that it will be a stupendous task, Ambedkar exhorted that to achieve this, each VBA activist would have to fan out and reach out to the masses across the state.
Noting that the VBA represents the people who are the poor, neglected, oppressed and exploited classes of society irrespective of their caste, community, and religion, he said that, hence, the party workers must make an all-out effort to save democracy and Constitution from the autocratic rule of the BJP-led government at the Centre.
He slammed the government for utter failure to tackle the problems of unemployment, inflation, the farmers in distress, or the interests of the workers in the unorganised sectors of the economy.
Ambedkar’s Jalgaon rally was part of his state-wide pre-poll preparatory tour with rallies planned in all the 36 districts of Maharashtra, starting after the November 25 ‘Honour the Constitution’ rally in Mumbai.
On the party’s eagerness to join the Opposition parties INDIA bloc, a senior leader said that so far there has been no response to its proposal.
"In case the INDIA. parties do not include the VBA in their alliance, then we are preparing to fight all the 48 Lok Sabha seats in this state independently," said the leader.
Incidentally, last year the VBA had entered into a seat-sharing tie-up with the Maha Vikas Aghadi ally and INDIA. constituent, the Shiv Sena-UBT led by ex-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, and is now keen to join the national opposition bloc.