Maharashtra: Prakash Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr. BR Ambedkar, on Saturday announced that his party — Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) — will contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in the general elections next year.

While announcing that his party will field nominees in all Lok Sabha seats in the state, the VBA chief also declared his candidature from the Akola constituency.

He added that his party has already started preparing for the mega electoral battle next year.

"We will contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats (in Maharashtra) next year. All our party units have started preparing for the next general elections. I have also decided to enter the fray from the Akola Lok Sabha constituency," Prakash Ambedkar told ANI on Saturday.

The VBA contested 47 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, garnering 6.98 per cent of the total votes polled.

Earlier, in a letter to Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, the VBA had expressed its interest to join the Opposition bloc — Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) — if invited, sources said.

Further, according to sources, the party, in its letter to the Congress national chief, said it had evinced an interest to join the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the Oposition alliance in Maharastra, during discussions with leaders of Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT).

"We are a party committed to fight for the rights of Vanchits, Bahujans and Muslims, and against the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP).We garnered 6.98 and 5.57 percentage vote share in the Lok Sabha election, 2019 and Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Election, 2019 respectively.Why an invitation, to join INDIA,has not been sent to us remains a mystery and puts a question on the alliance’s commitment to fight BJP-RSS without the support of Vanchits, Bahujans and Muslims," VBA spokesperson Priyadarshini Telang wrote in the letter to Kharge.