In the run-up to the general elections due in 2014, the Left parties have decided to keep the option of a third front alive with the four Left parties — CPI(M), CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP — on Monday declaring “no national alliance was possible” without them to de-throne the Congress and keep the BJP at bay.
Incidentally, the announcement comes days after arch rival Trinamul Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee called upon all regional parties to form a “federal front” to take on the Congress and the BJP in next year’s Lok Sabha elections.
While the Left leaders refused to link their move for a third alternative with the 2014 polls, there was enough indication on Monday that the Left parties are keen to block the Trinamul Congress’ attempts to steal regional allies with barely 12 months left for the general elections.
Asserting the Left parties importance in national politics, senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said, “It is only the Left that could lead in forming an alternative political alliance based on the alternative policy platform.”
Unfazed by its failure to cobble up a third front in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the four Left parties on Monday unanimously adopted a declaration and a 10-point alternative policy platform at a joint national political convention here.
Virtually admitting that the third front experiment was a failure in the 2009 polls, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said, “The Lok Sabha polls are slated next year, but they can happen earlier also. We can forge a front of non-Congress, non-BJP parties for these elections. But our experience has shown that nothing can be achieved like that.”
“No alternative can be possible if it is forged only for elections. It has to be on the basis of an alternative policy platform which will provide succour to the people who have been badly hit by the neo-liberal policies pursued both by the Congress and the BJP,” he said.
Mr Yechury said, “Neta nahi, niti chahiye’’ as he coined the Left’s slogan and slammed the “anti-people, neo-liberal” measures pursued both by the Congress and the BJP.