Mumbai: A little over a fortnight before the BMC polls, the Congress has forged an alliance with the Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA), led by Dr B R Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar, and finalised a seat-sharing pact Sunday.
The Congress said the alliance is only for Mumbai, and for the rest of the 28 municipal corporations going to polls in Maharashtra, a decision will be taken at the local level.
Of the 227 seats in the BMC, the Congress will field its candidates on 165 seats, while the VBA will contest 62 seats. “This is a natural alliance between Congress and VBA. Both follow the Constitution and have the same ideologies,” Congress state president Harshwardhan Sapkal to media persons.
With this alliance, Congress hopes to capitalise on Dalit votebank. The BMC polls are scheduled for 15 January, with counting set for the next day.
संविधानाला अभिप्रेत असणारा भारत घडवणे हा भारतीय राष्ट्रीय काँग्रेस आणि वंचित बहुजन आघाडीचा अजेंडा आहे.
: मा.श्री. हर्षवर्धन सपकाळ
अध्यक्ष – महाराष्ट्र प्रदेश काँग्रेस कमिटी pic.twitter.com/wRedGdWjLN— Maharashtra Congress (@INCMaharashtra) December 28, 2025
Last month, the Congress had also tied up with the VBA for the Nanded municipal corporation elections. Congress MP Ravindra Vasantrao Chavan had said during the announcement that the alliance had the “potential to expand significantly into a broader agreement” in the future.
The fight for India’s richest municipal body is set to be an interesting one due to the unlikely alliances that have been forged to fight it. While Mahayuti allies BJP and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena are contesting together, Uddhav Thackeray has teamed up with his estranged cousin and erstwhile rival Raj Thackeray, in a partnership that has been the talk of the town as they join forces to win over the ‘Marathi manoos’.
Interestingly, the BJP and its second Mahayuti ally, Ajit Pawar’s NCP, are contesting separately. Sharad Pawar’s NCP has not yet announced any tie-up.
However, in the past, relations between Congress and VBA have been full of friction.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the VBA had tied up with the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and dented the prospects of the Congress-NCP coalition in at least seven seats.
The alliance with the AIMIM collapsed ahead of the assembly elections later that year, and the VBA went on to win 4.5 per cent of the vote, or 5.5 per cent in just the seats it contested (236 out of 288 seats).
In January 2023, Ambedkar and Uddhav’s Sena forged an alliance. Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the VBA joined the seat-sharing talks of the opposition bloc MVA. However, the talks fell through and Ambedkar later decided to fight the elections alone.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls though, the VBA’s vote share dropped to 3 per cent.
Even during the assembly elections last year, the VBA contested against the MVA, however it failed to get any seats and its voteshare dropped further to 2.8 percent.
The Congress says it is still a part of the MVA, which also comprises the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena-UBT and Sharad Pawar’s faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Also Read: Thackeray cousins reunite: The clan that shaped Maharashtra politics—from Prabodhankar to Aaditya