By IANS,
Kolkata : The newly formed Third Front would be the only alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the near future, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Mohammed Salim said here Friday.
“The Third Front will be the only alternative political platform for people who do not support the Congress or the BJP at the centre,” Salim told reporters while attending the party’s weekly state secretariat meeting here.
“The front cannot emerge as a powerful political option overnight. It will take some time. It is a long-drawn battle and we have to advance with the support of common people.”
Salim said the common minimum programme of the political parties that formed a grand non-Congress non-BJP alliance in Tumkur near Bangalore Thursday was already ready.
“The Left parties played a pivotal role in bringing all these secular and democratic political forces under a single umbrella,” he said.
In the last Lok Sabha elections in 2004, almost 52 percent of the people had exercised their franchise in support of non-Congress and non-BJP political parties, he added.
Veteran CPI-M leader and the party’s central committee member Shymal Chakraborty said the formation of the Third Front had encouraged every common person to think of a political alternative at the national level.
Amongst the parties that forged an alliance Thursday were the Janata Dal-Secular, the CPI-M, the Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).