The Congress in Maharashtra is considering a pre-poll tie up with Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar and Hyderabad politician Asaduddin Owaisi for the upcoming assembly elections. Mr Ambedkar, grandson of BR Ambedkar - the architect of India's constitution, heads the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) which is backed by Mr Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). The two groups contested the Lok Sabha elections together, winning none of the 48 seats in the state but scoring a sizeable portion of the total vote.
The Congress had accused the same outfit of being a B-team of the BJP during the national elections and as it had feared, the VBA did end up eating into its votes.
The move comes after a meeting held by the party to analyse the reasons for its poor show in the state. The Congress won just one parliamentary seat in Maharashtra while its ally the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won four and the BJP and Shiv Sena scooped up 41.