Left in no mood to name Maya PM candidate

CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat is likely to come to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati’s dinner on Sunday but the Left and other partners of the Third Front will not go anywhere announcing her name as the possible prime ministerial candidate before the Lok Sabha polls.

A day after Mayawati’s closest aide, Satish Mishra, announced “the aim to make Mayawati the next prime minister” at a Third Front rally near Bangalore, the Left is not changing its earlier stance of going to the polls without projecting anyone as the possible prime minister.

After the meeting of available politburo members of the CPI(M) this morning, veteran CPI(M) leader and Citu President M K Pandhe clearly said, “We will think about the prime minister only after the polls.”

On Thursday, after sending her emissary Mishra at the Third Front’s inaugural rally at Bangalore, Mayawati invited the Third Front leaders for a strategy meeting in the capital over dinner on Sunday.

Left leaders also point out that the BSP has denied any pre-poll alliance and made it clear that it will contest from as many seats as possible in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. In this context, the Left finds no justification in echoing the sentiments to project Mayawati as the Third Front leader.