india

Updated: Sep 11, 2019 17:37 IST

The Shiv Sena has reacted to the break-up of political alliance between Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and All India Majilis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) days ahead of in Maharashtra assembly polls and suggested it carried an important lesson in realpolitik.

In an apparent dig, Sena mouthpiece Saamana’s editorial, hit out at VBA president Prakash Ambedkar while claiming that vote-bank politics around one religion and caste does not succeed in Maharashtra.

The Sena also said that the Muslim-Dalit alliance between the AIMIM and the VBA that had created some impact in the recent Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, was expected to snap due to VBA chief Ambedkar’s “stubborn nature”.

The Sena said that VBA gave a “big jolt” to the Congress-NCP in the Lok Sabha polls. “In some constituencies, the VBA polled a lot of votes but the bulk votes of the Muslim community did not go to the VBA. A portion of it went to the Congress-NCP and some came to Sena-BJP. With this the illusion, of Dalit and Muslim communities forming a voting bloc, was broken. Politics based on one caste and one religion cannot be done in Maharashtra,” the editorial in the Marathi daily said.

The alliance between AIMIM and VBA snapped last week by AIMIM MP and party’s Maharashtra chief Imtiaz Jaleel over seat sharing. Ambedkar had offered AIMIM eight out of the 288 seats in the state. Jaleel’s decision to walk out was backed by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday.

The Sena asked if the Dalit community was going to back Ambedkar’s party because it had “Bahujan” in its name. The editorial pointed out that many political parties had tried to “use” the Dalit community as a political vote bank in Maharashtra without much success. “Mayawati’s party (Bahujan Samaj Party) too has ‘Bahujan’ in it. Her party furthered Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s teachings and came to power in north India. But the Dalit politics was not successful for her in Maharashtra, neither was it successful for Prakash Ambedkar and not even for the Republican Party factions ,” the editorial said.