Lashing out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) leader Prakash Ambedkar accused the saffron party of resorting to “blackmail” and “pressure tactics” to prevent opposition parties from forging alliances with the Congress.
He further announced that he would dissolve the BBM and formally merge it into the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) after the conclusion of the Lok Sabha election.
Mr. Ambedkar specifically hit out against Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani’s accusations against Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his sister, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, over alleged corruption involving land deals.
“It is not that I am taking the side of the Gandhis, but why doesn’t the government investigate the matter in a constitutional manner instead of making such allegations just before polls. At present, pressurisation seems to be the BJP’s new formula to win the election. Rifts are deliberately being engineered within families as scions of the opposition parties are being promised BJP tickets. A situation is being created by the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to prevent other parties from forging alliance with the Congress,” said Mr. Ambedkar, speaking in Akola.
He said that opposition parties were being “cowed into submission” by the ruling BJP, which was raising the spectre of investigating alleged scams committed by opposition party members.
“Sharad Pawar withdrawing his candidacy from the Lok Sabha seat, Sujay Vikhe-Patil ( son of senior Congressman Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil) joining the BJP and Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil (son of NCP MP Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil) meeting with BJP leaders were proof of the pressure being brought to bear upon opposition parties by the BJP,” alleged Mr. Ambedkar.
He further remarked that he foresaw “a fascist government” in power at the Centre if the BJP under Prime Minister Modi managed to win the 2019 election.
The BBM chief’s remarks come after he recently ruled out prospects of an alliance with the Congress-NCP to form an anti-BJP block, announcing instead that the VBA would contest all 48 seats in Maharashtra in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
Mr. Ambedkar further alleged that former BJP leader Nana Patole, who has been fielded by the Congress’ against senior BJP leader and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in Nagpur, was nothing but a “dummy candidate.”
“The Congress’ announcement of Patole’s candidacy smacks of yet another instance of the pressure tactics being applied by the RSS,” Mr. Ambedkar said, implying that the BJP’s pressure had forced the Congress to field a ‘weak’ candidate against Mr. Gadkari.
Speaking on the ‘repositioning’ of his party, Mr. Ambedkar said that while the policy of social engineering under the ‘Akola Pattern’ had been successful under the BBM banner, there were limits to the expansion of the party as connoted by word ‘Bharipa.’
“Instead, ‘Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi’ [the front of neglected communities] would encompass a wider range of deprived communities. Hence, the decision to merge the BBM into the broader VBA,” he said.
Mr. Ambedkar has allied with the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) to form the VBA which also comprises of smaller outfits with the objective of consolidating the Dalit-Muslim constituency in Maharashtra.
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