Third alternative's contours to be clear this momnth: Karat

Non-BJP and Non-Congress secular parties will meet in New Delhi later this month after the ongoing parliament session to announce the contours of a third alternative for the coming Lok Sabha polls, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said here Sunday.

Addressing a rally convened by West Bengal's Left Front, Karat warned that if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes to power at the centre, neo-liberal policies will be implemented more vigorously, with the corporates earning more profit, and getting greater scope to loot the country's resources.

At the same time, communal amity will be endangered. "The country will stand divided on communal lines," he said.

Accusing the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance of failing to tackle the communal forces or stand up to them, Karat said there was a need for non-BJP and non-Congress secular parties to come together to present a third alternative to the people in the coming polls.

"All these secular, non-BJP and non-Congress parties and leftists will come together to fight the Congress and the BJP. This month itself, after the ongoing parliament session ends, these non-Congress and non-BJP parties will hold a meeting and place the contours of a third alternative for the Lok Sabha polls," he said before a massive turnout at the Brigade Parade Ground.

He ridiculed BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's dismissal of the Third Front as third grade at the same venue Feb 5.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader said: "He has uttered a truth. Because third grade is higher than first grade. Narendra Modi is still in the first grade. And Left Front and other parties which will form the third altenative are in the third grade."

"When Lok Sabha polls are held, we will come to know where Narendra Modi and the BJP stands in West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka."

On the state's ruling Trinamool Congress, Karat said it was now time for its supremo Mamata Banerjee to align with the BJP as she has parted ways with the Congress.

"It is natural for Modi to extend an invitation to her. She after all was a union minister in the cabinet of prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee from 1999 to 2001. She resigned in 2001, but rejoined the cabinet in 2004 and fought the Lok Sabha polls with the BJP."

"Now she has parted ways with the Congress, so now it's time for her to align with the BJP again," he said.

Party politburo member and former state chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee alleged a tacit understanding between the Trinamool and the BJP which, he said, it would lead West Bengal to disaster.

Bhattacharjee took a dig at Modi for his comments at the Feb 5 Brigade rally that people of the state will have "laddoos" in both their hands if he ruled at the centre and Banerjee in the state, as both would work for the state's development.

"Narendra Modi is talking about two laddoos - one of BJP and another of the Trinamool Congress. People will have to repent if they eat these laddoos," he said.

Bhattacharjee said the leftists would fight the coming polls on alternative polices.

"Who will be the prime minister it is not a big issue for us," he added.