Friday, April 7 2006 17:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Left parties today (Apr 07, 2006) reacted coolly to the formation of a Third Force opposed to Congress and BJP, with CPI(M) saying it has its own ideas as to what constituted such an alternative while CPI and RSP raised doubts over the venture being spoken about by some regional parties.

"Our party has its own understanding of what should constitute the Third Alternative. We will discuss the matter in the context of the overall political situation after the assembly elections are over," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat told sources here.

Karat has been a champion of the cause of a Third Front for quite some time, but had said earlier that it would take some time for such an alternative to evolve and it was possible only through people's movement.

CPI also echoed similar views with its National Secretary D Raja saying there was "no such readymade thing" about the Third alternative.

Raja said that in the past several such fronts were formed like the United Front and the People's Front. "Whatever may be the Front or alternative, it must emerge from people's movement on two planks - fighting communalist-fascist politics and the neo-liberal, anti-people economic policies."

Besides, he said what was known was only the announcement of a Third Force by Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Telugu Desam Party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu. "Nothing is known about their policies and programmes"

RSP's senior leader Abani Roy

While no one from Forward Bloc was immediately available for comments, RSP's senior leader Abani Roy said "we only know that they (Yadav and Naidu) have set up a front."

"Although the need for an alternative front exists, it cannot be formed by just the regional parties. One party belongs to Uttar Pradesh, while another belongs to Andhra and the third to Assam. The Left parties are the only national parties," Roy said.

Yadav, who had met Karat in recent months for discussion on the issue of formation of a Third Front, had at yesterday press conference said Left had always been very supportive of any anti-Congress and anti-BJP move.

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, whose party and the Left had floated the Peoples' Front sometime back, had unilaterally broken it in the wake of differences over the Presidential elections in which SP had supported A P J Abdul Kalam while Left had put up Capt Lakshmi Sehgal.

Both the SP and the Left are outside supporters of ruling coalition. Left have got the largest number of seats in the Lok Sabha so far-61-in the last elections.

Yadav and Naidu had said yesterday that their parties, along with AIADMK, AGP and National Conference, would be working together to forge a national alternative through "long term understanding".