Ambedkar's rival Ramdas Athawale took out a huge rally on Sunday at Nanded appealing to people not to respond to the convention. A booklet detailing as to how Ambedkar was responsible for the rift in the united RPI was also published and its copies distributed to mediapersons here today by Athawale's supporters.

All factions of the RPI and other Dalit organisations, led by prominent leaders including R S Gavai, Ramdas Athawale, Prof Jogendra Kawade and Prakash Ambedkar (all MPs) had merged into a united RPI and a ten-member presidium was set up on December 25, 1995 at a public rally in Mumbai. The presidium members are Gavai, Athwale, Prof Kawade, Ambedkar, B C Kamble, T M Kamble, Shiv Ram Mogha (Karnataka), Ghanshyam Talwalkar, Raja Dhale andNamdeo Dhasal. Dhasal later resigned as member of the presidium.

The crisis in the party began two years ago on the issue of leadership and internal elections following the directives of the Chief Election Commission. Both leaders -- Prakash Ambedkar and Ramdas Athawale -- declared their organisational elections and national conventions separately -- one at Nanded and other at Pune.

According to supporters of Ambedkar, Adv B H Gaikwad and Prof Avinash Dolas, the stage is set for the convention at Nanded and about two lakh people are expected to attend it. However, Pritamkumar Shegaonkar belonging to the Athawale faction said that except Ambedkar and Raja Dhale, the majority of six other presidium members will not attend the Nanded convention.

Shegaonkar said though Athawale had arranged five meetings during the last two years to chalk out organisational election programmes, Ambedkar had not attended any of them. He alleged that Ambedkar was responsible for the split in the united RPI as the Nandedconvention was declared without taking any of the presidium members into confidence.

Dolas said the Nanded convention would start on Wednesday with the subject committee meeting and the political resolutions adopted by the meeting would be announced on Thursday in the open session.

He said the Nanded convention would be historically significant as the RPI would spread its base absorbing people other than the Dalit community.

Meanwhile, the police have made elaborate arrangements to prevent any untoward incident at Nanded.