By NNN-PTI,
Hyderabad, India : There has been good progress in the efforts to forge a third front in Indian politics, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said.
“I think we are proceeding on the right track. We have made progress in the last few weeks,” he told reporters here on Friday when asked how confident he was about forming an alliance sans Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress.
Karat said that Communist Party of India (CPI)and CPI(M) have decided for an electoral understanding with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhgham (AIADMK) and Janta Dal-Secular (JDS) and efforts were on to rope in more parties to form a strong alternative to the Congress and BJP.
The CPI(M) leader, meanwhile, indicated that many other parties are likely to join the proposed third front.
To a query, he said the CPI(M) and the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are likely to have a political understanding.
“Regarding BSP, their practice has been to fight independently and have post-election understanding. In the case of Left, we have been in contact with the BSP,” he said.
“We have agreed to work together on certain issues and cooperate. I don’t know whether this will be translated into an electoral understanding. But definitely, we are working towards having a political understanding with BSP,” Karat added.
Asked whether he considered AIADMK as a reliable ally in the wake of the Jayalalithaa-led party backing out of the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), Karat said CPI(M) had maintained that formation of the eight-party combination was a premature move.