After BMC Poll Deal, Prakash Ambedkar's "Sakuni, Sleeper Cell" Swipe At Congress

Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar has slammed whom he identified as "sleeper cells" within the Congress, as realignments unfold ahead of the election to the BMC, the country's richest municipal body.

He directly attacked Congress leader Varsha Gaikwad as "Shakuni" from the Mahabharata, alluding to a cunning and manipulative behaviour.

With a lot of difficulty, the Congress and Ambedkar's VBA have agreed to join hands at least in Mumbai.

"The Congress's high command on one side, and allies like NCP and Shiv Sena on the other side worked like Shakuni. The third is that there are sleeper cells in the Congress, you must have seen," Ambedkar told NDTV today.

He said the Congress leadership did not take action against these elements despite being aware of their presence.

The VBA will contest 62 seats in Mumbai. Regarding alliances in the other 28 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, the leaders of both parties said positive decisions will be taken at the local level, for which both parties have granted authority to their local leadership.

The decision to form an alliance was formally announced at the Congress headquarters, Tilak Bhavan, by Maharashtra Congress president Harshvardhan Sapkal and VBA's state vice president Dhairyavardhan Pundkar.

Sapkal said the alliance between the Congress and the VBA is a natural one.

Both parties share the same ideological position and are committed to constitutional values and to building an India envisioned by the Constitution, he said.

The Congress's city unit was, however, jolted by the party's U-turn, scrapping its decision to go solo in the upcoming Mumbai civic elections just days before the deadline for filing nominations.

The Congress had earlier asserted it would contest the January 15 polls solo on all 227 wards. Apart from the VBA, the Congress has allocated 10 seats to the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh (RSP) and two to the Republican Party of India (Gavai faction), unsettling functionaries of the party's city unit, leaders said.

Senior leaders pointed out that never before has such an important decision concerning the Mumbai unit been announced by the state Congress president. The city unit president Varsha Gaikwad, however, said she is happy with the alliance and the seat pact.