Lucknow: Communist Party of India (CPI) today (Feb 13, 2004) favoured fielding a joint Opposition candidate against Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

"All political parties should agree on fielding a joint candidate against the Prime Minister in order to defeat him and give a befitting reply to the Government which has been following wrong policies," CPI general secretary A B Bardhan said, addressing the party's State Council meeting.

"Secular forces are quite strong in Uttar Pradesh and if they put up a joint fight in the elections, communal parties will not be able to open their account in the State," he said.

Bardhan said common man would welcome the move if the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party came together to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the hustings.

He said CPI would contest five Lok Sabha seats in the State and support secular parties in other seats to prevent division of anti-BJP votes.

Taking a dig at BJP's feel-good factor, the CPI general secretary said, "The common people have failed to understand it as it is only meant for wealthy persons, who constitute only 10 per cent of the country's population."