Saturday, January 7 2006 09:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) yesterday (Jan 06, 2006) said time was not ripe for a third political front at this moment.

In an interview, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said his party "would not be hurried, hustled into becoming part of a Third Front".

Observing that the Third Front could only evolve when like-minded parties with similar approaches to political and economic issues came together, he said, "we are not going to align just for electoral considerations".

"Extremely unhappy", he said when asked to comment how comfortable he felt with the UPA government getting close to the US, sources said in a press release.

He disagreed with the government's reported view that development activities would get a boost once there was a better relationship with the US.

Noting that foreign policy differences could become sharper in the months to come, Karat said that during US President George Bush's visit to India "many of these policies are going to come out in sharp relief".

Describing the phone-tapping controversy involving Samajwadi Party leaders as 'an assault on civil liberties', the CPI(M) leader, however, said, "I am not saying that this tapping has been ordered by 10 Janpath", official residence of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

It showed that "in this country anything can happen. A private operator could accept a request for a tap even on the basis of forged letters", the release quoted Karat as saying.