LS polls: CPI(M) in talks with like-minded parties

The CPI(M), which has finalized 80 Lok Sabha seats, is in talks with other like-minded parties to forge electoral alliances on some more constituencies in its bid to forge an alternative against Congress and BJP.

The major Left party is confident of a realignment of non-Congress, non-BJP secular political parties emerging as a
third alternative and forming government.

The party's Central Committee, meeting in New Delhi from tomorrow, would finalise its poll manifesto attacking the
governments of the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA for bringing the country to the verge of "destruction" and forge a
political alternative to both in the national polity.

CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat recently said the upcoming elections would throw up a combination of secular
parties forming government at the Centre, but a Congress-led government was unlikely.

In this context, he recalled that in 1996, 1998 and 2004, the ruling coalitions had evolved only after elections and this could happen now too.

The Left parties would also next week issue a call to secular forces in NDA which are "perturbed" by BJP's Hindutva agenda and parties in UPA which were unhappy with Congress' "privatise or perish" policy. They would also appeal to the people to "reject both Congress and BJP".