Will form new SC-ST-OBC front for assembly polls: VBA chief

Mumbai: Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar on Monday announced that a new front for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) will be unveiled ahead of the assembly polls in the state. The front will not be under the VBA, but VBA will be a part of it, he said.
“We SCs, STs and OBCs will come together for the assembly elections and a new front will be formed to steer this new social alliance. We will name the front later – it will not be under the VBA, but VBA will be part of it,” Ambedkar said during a press conference at the VBA headquarters in Mumbai. He was accompanied by Tuleshwar Markam, president of the Gondwana Gantantra Party; Sunil Gaikwad from the Bharat Adivasi Party; Madhav Tekam from the Kolam Aadim Jamat Sangh; and other representatives of small parties/ organisations working with marginalised social groups.
VBA will unite tribals in the state and conduct public meetings at Jalgaon, Manmad and Nagpur between September 30 and October 5, said Ambedkar. “Besides reserved seats for STs, voters belonging to tribal communities are influential in around 20 non-reserved seats, where their population ranges from 15% to 29.9%. Thus, the total number of assembly seats under ST influence is around 44. So, ST candidates will contest from general seats too this time,” he told reporters.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, VBA had cut into the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi’s vote share, which cost the alliance around 8-9 Lok Sabha seats. In the recent Lok Sabha polls, it had tried to attract SC and OBC voters and Ambedkar had also met Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil to woo Marathas, but the moves did not translate into enough votes. The VBA chief’s latest announcement indicates that it will now focus on assembly seats dominated by tribals, in addition to seats reserved for SCs, to regain its political clout.