How Prakash Ambedkar's VBA May Have Harmed Opposition in 20 Maharashtra Seats

The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi harmed Maha Vikas Aghadi in 20 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly elections.

Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) may not have won a single seat in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, but it may have affected the outcome in a number of seats. Supporters of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) have accused the VBA of splitting Opposition votes and helping the BJP-led Mahayuti win.

While the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also harmed the MVA candidates, the split of votes among one or more of these players in some seats also handed over the victory to the candidate of the ruling Mahayuti alliance.

The MVA was impacted by the VBA in at least 20 seats against the Mahayuti. In 15 of these 20 seats, the MVA lost to the Mahayuti by less than 10,000 votes.

It is important to note here that the MVA and VBA are both strong in the same sets of voters - Neo-Buddhists and Muslims. Therefore any rise in the fortunes of one will impact the other. For instance in the Lok Sabha elections, the consolidation of these communities for the MVA adversely impacted the VBA. In the Assembly polls, it is the VBA that may have taken away a chunk of votes the MVA was hoping to get.

Here's looking at the key seats where the VBA's presence may have affected the Opposition.

Where VBA May Have Harmed Congress

In the seats where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress were in a contest, the latter was harmed by the VBA in at least 5 seats.

The seats where the VBA polled more votes than the BJP's victory margin:

1. Khamgaon

2. Akot

3. Ralegaon

4. Aurangabad East

5. Latur Rural

In Aurangabad East, however, the BJP's battle was not so much with the Congress but with AIMIM's Imtiaz Jaleel. Jaleel lost by just 2,161 votes, while the VBA nominee polled over 6,000.

Meanwhile, Latur Rural saw the defeat of Dhiraj Deshmukh, son of former CM Vilasrao Deshmukh. Latur is considered to be the bastion of the Deshmukh family.

The VBA also harmed the Congress in Nanded North and Nanded South, where in the latter's contest with Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena. The Congress lost both seats by a very narrow margin of 3,502 and 2,132 votes, while the VBA got 24,266 and 33,841 votes respectively.

13 Non-Congress Seats of Maha Vikas Aghadi Which VBA Affected

In 21 other seats, the VBA impacted either the NCPSP or the Shiv Sena UBT against the Mahayuti. Out of these, the VBA's presence led to the defeat of a Maha Vikas Aghadi candidate in 13 seats:

1. Akola East

2. Murtizapur

3. Hingoli

4. Jintur

5. Partur

6. Gangapur

7. Belapur

8. Buldhana

9. Ghansawangi

10. Paranda

11. Sindhkhed Raja

12. Anushakti Nagar

13. Aurangabad central

In all of the above seats, the votes polled to the VBA were more than the Mahayuti candidate's victory margin.

In some seats like Partur, Belapur, and Ghansawangi, the MNS and independent candidates polled more votes than the VBA, but the VBA's votes were still more than the Mahayuti's victory margin.

In Aurangabad Central too, the Mahayuti's battle was more with AIMIM than with the MVA. Here, Shiv Sena's Pradeep Jaiswal won by a margin of 8,119 votes against AIMIM's Siddiqui Naseerudin, with Sena UNT's Balasaheb Thorat at the third spot. VBA's Mohd Javeed Isaaq got 12,639 votes.

What Next for VBA?

It is no one's case that one party should prioritise the interests of another party. In a democracy everyone has a right to contest. The VBA's counter to the MVA's allegations of being a "spoiler" is simple: MVA should have accommodated the VBA but didn't do so either in the Lok Sabha or the Assembly elections.

Also, these 20 odd seats where the VBA may have adversely affected the MVA, wouldn't really have changed the course of the election. The Mahayuti was winning anyway.

The VBA itself is gradually declining with every election. In the 2014 Assembly elections, Ambedkar's Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh won just one of the 70 seats it contested.

In the 2019 Assembly elections, though the VBA contested 236 seats and garnered a vote share of 4.58%, it failed to win a single seat.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the VBA again did not win a single seat, including Ambedkar himself who contested from Akola, with its vote share dropping to 2.8%.

Following the results announced on 23 November, Ambedkar said that though he accepts the people's mandate, "the discrepancies in results must be probed."