Prakash Ambedkar, whose Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), has kept the MVA waiting for a pre-poll alliance, has asked the NCP (Sharad Pawar) leader Jitendra Awhad whether his party would give a guarantee that it would not join the BJP after the polls. The statement has come in response to Awhad’s appeal that the VBA chief should meet the like-minded parties at the earliest to consolidate their united fight to save the Constitution.

Awhad had written a letter to Ambedkar and posted it on social media. The VBA chief also took to social media. The exchange happened in the light of the delay in the MVA-VBA pact, which of late is appearing to be far-fetched. MVA and VBA representatives had some meetings in the past to thrash out a formula for the Lok Sabha seat-sharing, but no concrete solution has been found yet. Ambedkar has put forward some conditions while demanding a number of seats that MVA found unreasonable. He has suggested that Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil be fielded as an MVA candidate from Jalna.