VBA to contest all elections in 2024 in alliance with Uddhav-led Sena

Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) head Prakash Ambedkar on Monday said his outfit will contest all elections in 2024 in alliance with the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray.

The Maharashtra Assembly elections are due in 2024. Polls to various civic bodies, including the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, are also overdue.

The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and Prakash Ambedkar's VBA had announced a tie-up on January 23.

Ambedkar had then said the alliance was between the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the VBA for the moment, but he hoped other constituents of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party) also join.

In a big blow to Uddhav Thackeray, the Election Commission on Friday allotted the name Shiv Sena' and its poll symbol bow and arrow' to the group led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

The EC allowed the Thackeray faction to retain the name Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the flaming torch' poll symbol, given to it in an interim order in October last year, till the conclusion of ongoing assembly bypolls in the state.

To a query from reporters here on Monday, Ambedkar said, "The friendship between the Shiv Sena (UBT) and VBA will remain in the 2024 Assembly elections, and whatever polls will be held in between, the election alliance with remain."

Ambedkar also said no candidate has been fielded the VBA-Uddhav Thackeray Sena faction for the upcoming byelection to Chinchwad Assembly seat in Pune.

Hence, the VBA is supporting independent candidate Rahul Kalate, he added.