The party's presidium decided to continue its alliance with the Congress, which refused to part with even a single seat. It brushed aside the poll boycott call given by a factional head Prakash Ambedkar. The presidium's decision has underscored the growing distance between the two factions which reacted differently to the Congress' stand denying seats to the party.

Earlier on May 14 Prakash, who was completely sidelined during the last general elections, had a meeting with Dalit intellectuals and decided to boycott the polls since the Congress was not willing to support RPI candidates on any of the 10 assembly seats. The idea was to stay away from the elections rather than contest against Congress which would have been seen as a tacit help to the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Partyalliance. At the same time it would have marked the formal termination of the alliance with Congress.

Accordingly, Prakash had written a letter to the Party presidium to protest by boycotting the elections.

However, the presidium took a different view. The senior party leader Ramdas Athawle said that Dalit could not terminate the alliance with Congress, which produced good results in Lok Sabha polls, at a time when the regular elections to the Maharashtra legislative assembly were just a year and a half away.

He said that the Congress leader Sharad Pawar had promised him that the RPI would be given a sizable number of seats in the 1999 assembly elections.

``We did not want to stall future prospects,'' he said. ``We will try and convince Prakash about the political wisdom in continuing the alliance with the Congress and we hope that he will understand the feelings of more than 80 per cent of Dalit population,'' Athawle said.

Deora shocked at Ambedkar's decision

Regional Congress Committeepresident and MP Murli Deora has expressed shock at RPI leader Prakash Ambedkar's announcement to boycott the forthcoming Assembly elections by the RPI. ``It is very unfortunate that after clinching a great victory in the last Parliament elections, Mr Ambedkar thought it wise to undo the unity forged by Congress-RPI and Samajwadi Party,'' he said. ``The Shiv Sena-BJP Government in Maharashtra is on its last props. It would not take a long time when this bastion of communalists would crumble. Congress rightly wants to win these seats in the by-election and I would have liked if one seat each to RPI and Samajwadi Party could have been given, '' Deora stated.