Narendra Modi will not return as Prime Minister after the elections in 2024, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar said on Friday. He alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) feel they can win the forthcoming election only by creating a Hindu-Muslim divide.
Speaking in Akkalkot in Solapur district, Mr. Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, said the BJP and the RSS had a single-point agenda: fomenting riots across the country.
Big change in 2024
“There will be a big change in 2024. While I cannot say who will form the government, Narendra Modi will certainly not return as PM. Because of this transformation, there will finally be peace in the country after the BJP’s ten year reign of fear,” said the former MP.
Mr. Ambedkar claimed that in villages across the country, the ruling party was reportedly trying to disrupt social harmony by “determining the numbers of inter-faith marriages that had taken place”.
“By giving this the colour of a so-called ‘Love Jihad’, the BJP are fomenting riots across the country and even troubling families formed of inter-religious marriages… Manipur is in turmoil, while efforts to stoke communal divide are on in Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra,” he alleged.
“If the BJP and RSS have come down to this, it means that the ground beneath their feet is slipping away…they are unable to digest their defeat in Karnataka. So, instead of addressing issues, they have a one-point agenda of fomenting riots across India. If the public can bear this for another six months, then they will see peace returning after the 2024 election,” Mr. Ambedkar said.
Congress wary of VBA
Despite his antagonism to the BJP, the VBA chief, however, remained ambivalent about a pact with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra in the forthcoming polls.
While Mr. Ambedkar has an alliance with Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), he is not yet part of the opposition MVA coalition (of the Sena UBT, the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP faction) given the wariness of the Congress and Mr. Pawar’s NCP faction.
He reiterated that the VBA was agreeable to an alliance and the onus is on the Congress and Mr. Pawar’s NCP faction to accept his party.
“Even they ought to feel that they need the VBA. After all, friendship cannot be forged by invitation,” he remarked.
The Congress and the NCP have been averse to inducting the VBA into the MVA coalition because Mr. Ambedkar’s party allied with Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. This fragmented the Ambedkarite-minority community votes that traditionally went to the Congress and the NCP, causing the defeats of Congress candidates in a number of seats.
“In the last [2019] elections, we fought on our own and in some cases, came very close to winning in some seats. This time, we will certainly open our account,” said Mr. Ambedkar.
