Mumbai: The Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi will contest 62 of the 227 seats in BMC polls as part of the Congress-led alliance, the two parties announced on Sunday. Congress, meanwhile, continued discussing seat-sharing with NCP (SP) until late Sunday.Congress is reportedly keen to contest 150 seats, leaving only 15 for NCP (SP) and other smaller alliance partners. Congress sources said they might reduce their demand for a few seats to accommodate NCP (SP).With Tuesday being the last day for filing nominations, Congress tried to conclude discussions by Sunday to enable its shortlisted candidates to file their papers. But the party and NCP (SP) continued to disagree on seat-sharing numbers.Through the selection of its candidates and the alliance, Congress aims to consolidate Muslim and Dalit voters. It believes the VBA alliance will be more helpful than other partners in Mumbai, hence the allocation of substantial seats to Ambedkar’s party.In the past two decades, Congress has attempted to forge alliances with VBA in parliamentary and state assembly elections, but these efforts did not materialise due to what the party described as Ambedkar’s “unrealistic” demands. VBA contested the recent assembly election independently, and although it did not win a single seat, it demonstrated its presence in many areas. In Mumbai too, in a few assembly segments, its candidates secured substantial votes, mainly in Chembur, Mankhurd, Mulund, and Anushakti Nagar.After finalising the Mumbai alliance with VBA, Congress said it expected local leaders to work out similar seat-sharing arrangements with the party for civic elections in the remaining 28 cities in the state.The announcement was made by Maharashtra Congress president Harshvardhan Sapkal and VBA state vice-president Dhairyavardhan Pundkar. Sapkal recalled that the two parties had allied in the 1998-99 elections and are coming together now “to start a new chapter, which is not a numbers game but a meeting of ideas.”Pundkar said that both parties had come together to stop the divisive and destructive politics of BJP. He noted that Sapkal took the first step towards the alliance and maintained a positive approach from the beginning.
