Elusive Ambedkar and compulsion of the Congress-NCP

Sixty-four-year-old Prakash Ambedkar leads a political outfit called the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasngh (BBM). His party doesn’t have a representation in Lok Sabha. The last time he won a parliamentary election was in 1999. His party just has one legislator now. In the Maharashtra Assembly elections of 2014, when it contested 70 seats, it got less than one per cent (0.9%) of the votes polled in the city. Yet, for the past few days, Congress leaders in Maharashtra have been wooing him to join the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-led alliance of opposition parties.

Even after he announced his decision to forge an alliance with Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) to contest the coming elections, the Congress is hopeful that he would join its anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) front. The Congress wants the grandson of late BR Ambedkar to attract the Dalit voters as the other influential Dalit leader Ramdas Athawale has joined the BJP camp since 2014 and has announced that he would continue to be part of the ruling National Democratic Alliance. Athawale was an ally of the Congress and the NCP for about two decades. The two parties also periodically had an alliance with other leaders like late RS Gavai and Jogendra Kawade.

Unlike most leaders from the Ambedkarite movement who chose to keep themselves or their parties limited to neo-Buddhists, Ambedkar tried to bring few socially backward caste groups together to form the BBM.

He got some success but his experiment remained limited to a few pockets. Had it got a response in other parts of Maharashtra, he would have emerged as a strong third force in the state. In past two decades, he mostly contested elections as part of a third front. This time, he had some initial negotiations with the Congress, but it failed. Ambedkar then joined hands with Owaisi, which is now becoming a headache for the Congress-NCP. Leaders from the two parties have now started accusing Ambedkar of helping the BJP as the BBM-AIMIM alliance is likely to cut into their Dalit-minorities votes.

Can the two parties blame Ambedkar or other leaders for not doing their bidding? If one considers Maharashtra’s recent political history, it won’t be wrong to say that the Congress and its ally NCP are equally responsible for the current situation.

When the Congress-NCP were in power, they did not bother to ensure that influential Dalit leaders would remain on their side. When he was their ally, Athawale was keen on being made a union minister but he was not accommodated in the successive UPA ministries from 2004 to 2014. He chose to side with the BJP when the latter assured him a share in power at the Centre. In 1999 assembly elections, Ambedkar’s BBM won three seats and supported the Vilasrao Deshmukh-led Congress-NCP government. However, in a couple of years, the Congress split his party and included the BBM MLAs into its fold, leaving Ambedkar fuming.

There is one more reason why the two parties have to woo leaders of Dalit parties ahead of the elections. Neither Congress nor NCP has a Dalit face to attract voters from the socially backward community. While the NCP didn’t have a Dalit face, the Congress did not bother to develop any Dalit leader from its ranks after Sushilkumar Shinde. He is now on the verge of retirement. Not just Dalit, leaders from politically significant Other Backward Classes or tribal communities are rarely seen among its top leaders in Maharashtra. The top leadership is full of Maratha leaders.

Little wonder, the party is now scurrying for an alliance with various Dalit factions. And if Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party refuses to be a part of the Congress-NCP front, things are not going to be easy for the latter as it prepares to take on the BJP.

First Published: Sep 25, 2018 00:50 IST