Country cannot afford luxury of failed idea: Jaitley on Third Front

BJP's PM candidate Modi has also been a trenchant critic of the Front

Rubbishing the proposed Third Front of the Left and regional parties, BJP today said the country cannot afford the luxury of a "failed idea".

Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said the country cannot afford such an idea, in an obvious reference to the earlier attempts by the similar formation to offer a political alternative at the Centre which came unstuck later.

"Third Front is a failed idea. This country cannot afford the luxury of a failed idea," Jaitley told a press conference when asked about the efforts being made by Left parties and likes of JD(U), SP, BJD to come under one banner.

Mulayam Singh Yadav of SP, Nitish Kumar of JD(U), H D Deve Gowda of JD(S) and Left leaders had recently met and proposed to form a non-Congress and non-BJP alliance.

BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has been a trenchant critic of the Front, saying it has always ended up helping Congress.

He had recently said that the Third Front will make the country "third rate", inviting sharp comments from Left parties.

"Third Front has only one work - Save Congress. Time has come to teach them a lesson," he had said at a rally in Odisha.

The Front, he said, was propped by Congress and comprises of parties which have "destroyed" every state they have ruled be it Left in West Bengal or SP in Uttar Pradesh.

He had singled out them as the major culprit for lack of development in the eastern region of India, from where they draw most of their influence, and said western India is relatively developed because they have not ruled there.

"These people (Left and its associates) who do politics in the name of secularism practice the politics of vote-bank by misleading Muslims. They destroyed the eastern region. You must banish them from the Indian politics forever," he had said.