The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) released a second of 11 candidates on Sunday, weeks ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Party chief Prakash Ambedkar declared Abul Khan as the candidate from the Mumbai North Central seat. The party has named BD Chavan from Hingoli, Narsingh Rao Udgirkar from Latur, Rahul Kashinath Gaikwad from Solapur, Ramesh Nagnath Baraskar from Madha, Maruti Dhodiram Jankar from Satara, Abdur Rahman from Dhule, Dadasaheb also known as Dadagauda Chaugaudda Patil from Hatkanangle, Sanjay Pandit Brahmane from Raver, Prabhakar Devman Bakle from Jalna Abdul Hasan Khan from Mumbai North Central while Kaka Joshi has been named from Ratnagiri-Sindhugiri. Abul Khan is the state president of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi.
Just a day earlier, senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan on Friday (March 29) said that the MVA’s doors are still open for Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) as division of opposition votes need to be avoided. Chavan said that the VBA had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on its own, resulting in the defeat of eight to nine Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidates. His remarks came days after Ambedkar announced the names of his party’s candidates from eight Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, signalling that the outfit was no longer pursuing an alliance with the MVA comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) and Congress.
Lok Sabha elections 2024
The seven-phase Lok Sabha polls, the world’s biggest election exercise, will kick off on April 19 with the counting of votes set to take place on June 4 as Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes a bid for a third consecutive term in office. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said over 97 crore voters – 49.7 crore males and 47.1 crore females – were eligible to cast their vote in the polling process spread over 44 days and across 10.5 lakh polling booths. The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
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