Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) leader Prakash Ambedkar’s invite to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to attend the ‘Samvidhan Samman Mahasabha’ to be held in Mumbai on November 25 has sparked speculation of the VBA joining the Opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc.
On Tuesday, Mr. Ambedkar, grandson of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar who headed the committee which drafted the Indian Constitution, lavished fulsome praise on Mr. Gandhi while inviting him to participate in the VBA’s ‘Samvidhan Samman Mahasabha’ to be held later this week in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park. The rally is to be held a day before Constitution Day (‘Samvidhan Divas’) observed annually on November 26 to commemorate adoption of the Constitution in 1949.
Rahul’s resurgence
Mr. Ambedkar said that Mr. Gandhi’s resurgence in contemporary politics reminded him of his mother, Sonia Gandhi’s emergence in active politics and her role in reviving the Congress after she assumed presidency of the INC in 1998 when the party was in power in just three states and was facing rebellion from its leaders.
In a thinly-veiled jibe at NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Mr. Ambedkar said the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (as the VBA was known previously) had supported the Congress under Ms. Gandhi when “prominent INC leaders had misgivings about Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s ‘foreignness’.” Mr. Pawar split the Congress to found the NCP in 1999.
“Based on our respective commitment to fight the RSS-BJP, which exists solely to destroy the ethos and ideas of the Constitution, I extend an invitation to the Samvidhan Samman Mahasabha to you on behalf of my party, VBA,” Mr. Ambedkar wrote.
“The Mahasabha has been organised to honour and celebrate both the Constitution and India’s founding ideals, which my grandfather, Dr B R Ambedkar, and your [Mr. Gandhi’s] great grandfather Shri Jawaharlal Nehru and other founding fathers had envisioned for our country,” he said.
Change in tone
While Mr. Gandhi has yet to respond to the invite, the VBA chief’s latest overture to the Congress comes as a surprise after he railed against the party in September this year, berating the Congress leadership for showing little interest in bringing the VBA into the I.N.D.I.A. bloc.
According to sources, it has triggered renewed speculation of a thawing between the Congress and the VBA and the possibility of the latter entering the INDIA bloc.
Relations between Mr. Ambedkar, the Congress and Mr. Pawar’s NCP, which have been frigid at best, worsened further after the VBA chief hit out at Congress leaders, especially INC president Mallikarjun Kharge, for claiming they had yet to receive any alliance proposal from the VBA when his party had, in fact, “written to Mr. Kharge on September” 1 about the possibility of the VBA joining the INDIA alliance.
The VBA was not invited for the third INDIA bloc meeting in Mumbai, Mr. Ambedkar had said.
Mr. Ambedkar is allied with Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) in Maharashtra. The Sena (UBT), is in turn, allied with the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP faction as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition.
According to analysts, the Congress and NCP (Sharad Pawar) reluctance to ally with the VBA can be traced to the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Mr. Ambedkar’s party, then allied with Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, played havoc by fragmenting the Ambedkarite-minority community votes that traditionally went to the Congress and the NCP, causing the rout of Congress candidates in at least nine seats.
While Mr. Ambedkar has often criticised Sharad Pawar for his “Janus-faced” behaviour and opportunism, he criticised the Congress, too, by remarking in September that the party reportedly used Dalits, tribals, Muslims and OBCs like “tissue paper” to be used and thrown away.
