After the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress and the NCP are once again trying to woo Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi party which ate into the votes of the coalition in at least 13 parliamentary constituencies.

Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan told reporters on Monday that the Congress and the NCP were open to a tie-up with the VBA for the Assembly elections which are due in October.

Though the Congress and the NCP had held talks with Ambedkar ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, negotiations came to a halt after the VBA leader demanded 24 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra. VBA then fielded candidates on all 48 seats and managed to severely damage the performance of the Congress-NCP coalition on as many as 15-18 seats, sources say.

“Despite putting unknown faces, the VBA managed to grab one lakh votes in 13 Lok Sabha constituencies and more than 50,000 votes in another 29,” Maharashtra Congress leader Ashok Chavan said.

Chavan lost his own seat in Nanded where the VBA cut into the coalition’s votes, causing the victory of the BJP candidate. Similarly, Ambedkar, who contested from Solapur, garnered 1.5 lakh votes ensuring that senior Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde lost to the BJP candidate. The VBA played a role in the defeat of farmer leader Raju Shetti of the Swabhimani Shetkari Paksh as well.

According to Election Commission data, the VBA garnered a vote-share of 7.2 per cent though it did not win any Lok Sabha seat.

After Chavan’s overtures to the VBA, Ambedkar said the VBA would want to field candidates on at least half the 288 Assembly seats if the Congress and the NCP wanted to tie up with his outfit. “The Congress and the NCP should treat the VBA on an equal footing,” Ambedkar said.