Cong strikes alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s RPI

MUMBAI January 3: The Congress' attempts to forge regional alliances met with the first success late last night when the party finally struc...

MUMBAI January 3: The Congress’ attempts to forge regional alliances met with the first success late last night when the party finally struck an electoral tie up in Maharashtra with a faction of the Republican Party of India (RPI) led by Prakash Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Senior Congress leader Sharad Pawar and N K P Salve had an hour-long meeting with Prakash and other senior leaders of the RPI at Pune. A senior RPI leader described the talk as "successful". However, there was a dispute over two seats, Hingoli and Amravati, for which the

leaders have agreed to take the final decision at a later date.

The way for the Congress-RPI alliance was paved following the state Congress’ decision to give up its claim on 15 out of 48 seats in favour of the other parties including Janata Dal, Peasant and Workers Party, CPI, CPM and other dalit parties. Another RPI factional head, Ramdas Athawle, had also started negotiations with the Congress with which he already had an alliance before. Though he was not present at the meeting, the RPI sources say he would not hamper the prospect of one-to-one contest against the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance.

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In fact, the perceived need to halt the advances of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in the State by one-to-one contest has been driving the two warring factions of RPI and Congress to come together. However, the parties affiliated to United Front have categorically stated that they would not have anything to do with the Congress, keeping the electoral scene in the state hazy.During the negotiations, the Congress leadership was reluctant to give up its claim on Hingoli from where the party wanted to field Suryakanta Patil.

Instead of taking a hard stand, the Congress leaders Pawar and Salve decided to postpone the final decision on the seat at a later stage.As for Amravati parliamentary constituency, Prakash feels that RPI candidate stand a very good chance of winning going by the party’s mobilisation during the past few months.

For RPI it seems absolutely necessary to win two seats from Maharashtra in order to continuing its recognition as a national party. As per the election commission’s rule book a national party must have at least two MPs or should have secured 15 lakh votes in the last parliamentary elections for continuing its recognition as national party.

In the 1996 parliamentary elections, the RPI candidates had secured second positions in Akola, Chimur, Amravati and Hingoli, the constituencies which have a sizable dalit population in the State.