Ban on RSS is Prakash Ambedkar’s condition to join secular alliance

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, February 24

Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar, who is being wooed by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party to join their alliance in Maharashtra, is demanding that the election manifesto of the secular combine promise a ban on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

This condition, more than his demand for 12 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state, has resulted in a deadlock in seat-sharing negotiations between the Congress-NCP and Ambedkar’s Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh, according to sources.

The Congress and the NCP, which have almost finalised seat-sharing arrangements between themselves, have decided to allot seats to several smaller parties from their respective quotas.

According to sources in the Congress and the NCP, the two are willing to accommodate Ambedkar in four seats.

“Some arrangements can be made in a few more seats as well,” says a Congress party leader.

With both sides refusing to budge, Ambedkar under the banner of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, an umbrella group of several backward caste communities, organised a massive rally at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park on Saturday evening.

Ambedkar was joined by AIMIM leaders including its president Asaduddin Owaisi.

“We are angling for seats in Parliament. We wanted them to give us in writing that once in power, they will ban the RSS,” Ambedkar said at the rally.

He accused the Congress party of emulating the BJP by following extremist Hindu Vedic ideology.

The grandson of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution, said a third front which would draw Dalit and Muslim voters could bag 10 to 15 Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra and still make a difference.

At Saturday’s rally, Ambedkar indicated that he has not entirely shut his doors on the Congress-NCP.

Even the AIMIM, which had cut into the votes of the Congress, NCP and the Samajwadi Party in the past, has indicated that it would not contest the polls if Ambedkar’s outfit was given a respectable seat share by the Congress and the NCP.

Ambedkar’s political fortunes saw a revival last year after he organized a Maharashtra bandh last year following the attacks on Dalits who participated in the Elgar Parishad at Bhima-Koregaon in Pune.